Installation & setup guide

1. Download the .dmg and open it.
2. Drag DeviceShelf into your Applications folder.
3. Open it from Launchpad or Applications. It's notarized by Apple, so it just opens — no security warning.

Requirements: macOS 12 or newer (Apple Silicon & Intel). Live per-device bandwidth needs elevated rights — see live bandwidth. Everything else works out of the box.

1. Download the installer (.exe) — x64 for Intel/AMD, or the ARM64 build for Snapdragon / Copilot+ PCs.
2. Run it. Windows SmartScreen may warn that the publisher is unverified (the build is unsigned): click More info → Run anyway.
3. Follow the installer and launch DeviceShelf.

For live bandwidth: install Npcap. Per-device bandwidth on Windows uses packet capture, which needs Npcap. The installer points you to it; you can also download Npcap and restart DeviceShelf. Scanning, ports, security report and everything else work without Npcap.

More: enabling live bandwidth.

DeviceShelf ships as an AppImage (runs anywhere, no install) and as native .deb / .rpm packages, for x86-64 and ARM64.

Installing the .deb? Use the terminal, not double-click — on Ubuntu 24.04 a double-clicked .deb opens in the App Center and can fail silently:

sudo apt install ./DeviceShelf-*.deb

Full Linux guide (AppImage, .rpm, capture rights): Install on Linux.

DeviceShelf for iPhone and iPad is on the App Store. Android ships as a direct APK you install yourself — there is no Google Play listing. Your license key works across desktop and mobile, so one purchase covers every device you own.

A headless server edition for continuous, always-on monitoring runs in Docker, via .deb or as a Windows service. Point it at the networks you want watched around the clock. It is covered by your existing license: same key, no extra cost.

New in 1.5.3: the server includes a local MCP server — connect Claude, Cursor or any AI agent and ask about your network in plain language. Connection guide →

Install guide, alerts, token setup and MCP connection examples are in the server guide.

The server edition publishes your devices to Home Assistant over MQTT. Home Assistant discovers them by itself, so there is nothing to install on its side beyond the MQTT integration and a broker — no add-on, no custom component.

1. Make sure Home Assistant has the MQTT integration set up against your broker (the Mosquitto add-on works, so does any external broker).
2. In the server dashboard open Settings → Integrations → Home Assistant, enter the broker address (192.168.1.10:1883 is enough), add a user and password if your broker needs them.
3. Tick Publish to Home Assistant and press Test connection. The entities show up within one scan interval.

Every exported device becomes one Home Assistant device with a presence sensor plus IP and latency, carrying vendor, model, type, OS and open ports as attributes. Alongside them sit network counters and an event entity firing on new devices, on devices going away and on newly opened ports, so an automation can react to an unknown device joining your network.

Favorites and infrastructure (gateway, routers, switches, access points, NAS, printers) are published automatically. Any other device can be added or excluded individually in its detail view.

Your router knows devices the scan cannot reach: phones that are asleep, devices on another VLAN. DeviceShelf can read the router's client list directly, on the desktop, on the phone and on the server. Each of them asks the router itself; nothing passes through our servers.

1. Open Settings → Router / controller (desktop app and server dashboard) or Settings → Router on the phone.
2. Pick your router's brand, or leave it on Detect automatically. Leave the address empty if the router is your gateway.
3. Enter what the note under the brand asks for. Most home routers (FRITZ!Box, ASUS, Netgear, TP-Link …) want the password of their web interface. Controllers such as UniFi, pfSense, OPNsense, FortiGate and Omada usually want an API key.
4. Press Test connection. It tells you which brand answered and how many devices came back.

The password stays on your device (Keychain on the Mac, the system's secure storage on iPhone and Android, an encrypted file on Windows and Linux) and is only ever sent to your router. Some routers only speak unencrypted HTTP inside the network; then anyone listening on it can read the login.

ASUS: DeviceShelf asks over HTTPS first. If the connection test warns about unencrypted HTTP, turn on HTTPS in the router under Administration → System → Local Access Config.

Tested on real hardware so far: UniFi and Zyxel. The other brands are built against the manufacturers' documented interfaces. If yours does not answer as expected, write to us.

1. After purchase you receive a license key by email.
2. In the app: Settings → License, click Paste & activate. Or paste the key yourself and click Activate.
3. On iPhone and iPad there is no key field: open the license email on the device and tap the activation button, or activate on the desktop first and scan its QR code (Settings → License → Activate on your phone) with the iPhone camera. On Android that works too, or paste the key under Settings → License.
4. Server edition: paste the same key in the server dashboard under Settings → General → License, or set DEVICESHELF_LICENSE in the environment (Docker, .deb, Windows service).

No account, no online check — activation is offline. The same key re-activates on all your devices. More: activating DeviceShelf.

Without these, the app still runs — only the respective feature stays inactive.

The scan finds nothing, or almost nothing

The scanner sees the network it is connected to. On a guest Wi-Fi, a VLAN or with a VPN active you scan that segment instead of your main one, which is the most common cause of a nearly empty list. On macOS, also check System Settings › Privacy & Security › Local Network: if DeviceShelf is not allowed there, a scan returns nothing at all. And give it half a minute — live hosts appear in seconds, names and identification follow.

Live bandwidth stays empty or greyed out

Per-device bandwidth uses packet capture, which needs extra rights: Npcap on Windows, sudo or BPF access on macOS/Linux. Everything else in the app works without it. The live bandwidth page walks through the setup per platform.

Windows warns about an unknown publisher

SmartScreen shows this for unsigned installers. Click More info → Run anyway. The download's SHA-256 checksum is published next to every release, so you can verify what you run.

The .deb does not install on Ubuntu

A double-clicked .deb opens Ubuntu's App Center, which can fail silently. Install it from the terminal instead: sudo apt install ./DeviceShelf-*.deb. Details on the Linux page.

The license does not activate

Paste the complete token from your purchase e-mail into Settings › License, with no line breaks. Verification runs offline, so no firewall can be in the way. If the token is rejected, reply to the purchase e-mail and we will sort it out.

macOS

1. If you set up live bandwidth: open Bandwidth in DeviceShelf and click Remove BPF access. It asks for an administrator password and removes the helper that System Settings lists as DeviceShelf-Helper. System Settings may keep showing the entry until the Mac restarts.
2. Quit DeviceShelf and drag it from Applications to the Trash. The “open at login” entry goes with the app.
3. To delete your device list, settings and saved passwords as well, remove the folder ~/Library/Application Support/DeviceShelf.

Older versions kept saved passwords in the Keychain. To remove those too, open Keychain Access, search for DeviceShelf and delete the entries it finds.

Already moved the app to the Trash while live bandwidth was set up? These commands in Terminal remove the helper:

sudo launchctl bootout system /Library/LaunchDaemons/app.deviceshelf.ChmodBPF.plist
sudo rm -f /Library/LaunchDaemons/app.deviceshelf.ChmodBPF.plist
sudo rm -rf "/Library/Application Support/DeviceShelf"
sudo chown root /dev/bpf*

Windows

1. Open Settings → Apps → Installed apps, find DeviceShelf and choose Uninstall.
2. Your device list and settings stay in %AppData%\DeviceShelf. Delete that folder to remove them too.
3. Npcap has its own entry in the same list. Remove it only if no other program on the PC uses it, Wireshark for example.

Linux

1. AppImage: delete the file. Package: sudo apt remove deviceshelf (.deb) or sudo dnf remove deviceshelf (.rpm).
2. Your device list and settings live in ~/.config/DeviceShelf. Delete that folder to remove them too.

• Install on Linux
• Run the 24/7 server edition
• Enable live bandwidth
• Activate your license
• Older versions & rollback
• FAQ
• Still stuck? Contact us

• See every device on your network and its IP address
• Who is on my Wi-Fi? See every device
• Secure your home network, step by step
• What an open port actually means
• Find IoT devices on your network
• Why your phone shows a random MAC address
• Scan a network on Windows
• Scan a network from Linux
• Self-hosted network monitoring