Can you use SillyTavern on an iPhone? How to set it up

Why the iPhone is only the screen

SillyTavern is two halves: a Node.js server that stores everything and talks to the model, and a web page you chat in. Android can run the server through Termux. iOS has no practical equivalent: terminal apps that exist there emulate a processor and are far too slow and fragile for daily use. So on an iPhone the plan is always the same: the server runs on something else, and Safari shows the page.

That has an upside. Every chat lives in one place, so the story you left on your desktop is the same story on your phone, with nothing to sync.

Step 1: let SillyTavern accept your phone

By default SillyTavern only answers the computer it runs on. Stop it, open config.yaml in the SillyTavern folder with a text editor, and change these keys:

• listen: true, so it accepts connections from your network.
• whitelistMode: true, and under whitelist add your phone's address, or a range such as 192.168.1.0/24 to cover your home network.
• Or, instead of a whitelist, basicAuthMode: true and a username and password under basicAuthUser.

Never set listen to true with the whitelist off and no password. Anyone who can reach the port could read your chats and use your API keys. Save the file and start SillyTavern again. On Windows, allow Node.js through the firewall for private networks when it asks.

Step 2: open it in Safari

Find the computer's local address. On Windows, run ipconfig and read the IPv4 Address line; on a Mac it is under Wi-Fi details in System Settings; on Linux, ip addr. Then, on the iPhone, on the same Wi-Fi, type it with the port:

• http://192.168.1.20:8000

If the page never loads, the usual culprits are a firewall on the computer, the phone being on mobile data instead of Wi-Fi, or a router setting that keeps devices apart, often on guest networks. If you see a forbidden message mentioning your IP, the whitelist does not include the phone yet.

Once it loads, tap Share then Add to Home Screen. SillyTavern then opens from an icon, full screen, like an app.

Using it away from home

Do not forward port 8000 on your router. A private mesh VPN is the safer route; Tailscale, for example, is an app that puts your own devices on one private network wherever they are. Install it on the computer and the phone, add the phone's VPN address to the whitelist, and open the computer's VPN address with :8000 from anywhere.

The computer has to be on and awake, so set it not to sleep while plugged in. An always-on machine works even better: an old laptop, a small home server, or a cheap cloud server, always with the whitelist or a password.

One habit to keep: do not type in the same chat from two devices at once. Each side saves its own copy and they can overwrite each other.

When you do not have a computer to leave on

If the computer is the part that does not fit your life, a hosted site is the easier way to roleplay on an iPhone. UnsavedAI runs in Safari, can sit on the home screen, and saves stories to your account so they follow you between phone and desktop. The same account can still give your home SillyTavern an API key from Setup, so both routes share one login; one account across many apps explains that setup.

Questions people ask