Documentation

LanGaze Help

Applies to LanGaze 1.0 on macOS 26, iOS 26, and iPadOS 26.

LanGaze scans your local network, builds an inventory of the devices it finds, and lets you name them. With iCloud sync turned on, the inventory follows you to your other devices. This page covers the common tasks and the platform limits worth knowing.

Scanning

Scan runs one sweep of your current subnet: it pings the address range, reads MAC addresses from the system, resolves hostnames, and picks up Bonjour services. Auto repeats the sweep on a timer until you stop it.

Results accumulate. A device that stops answering stays in the list, dimmed, with its last-seen time; it is not removed just because it went quiet. Clear Results in the toolbar menu resets the list.

Subnets larger than 4,096 addresses are pinged up to that cap. Devices beyond the cap still appear when the system's ARP table knows them.
On iPhone and iPad, Deep Scan (in the toolbar menu) adds a TCP probe that finds devices which ignore ping. It is manual only.

Labeling devices

Right-click a device on the Mac, or touch and hold on iPhone and iPad, then choose Edit to give it a name, a type, and a note. The type otherwise comes from automatic detection, which you can return to with Reset to Automatic.

A device needs a stable identifier (a MAC address or a hostname) to be labeled. Labels are kept even when the device is offline, and they are never removed automatically.

Manage Saved Labels in the toolbar menu lists the whole saved inventory, including devices not seen recently, and lets you remove entries. A removed device returns the next time a scan sees it.

iCloud sync

Sync is optional and off by default. Turn it on during onboarding or in Settings under iCloud. Your inventory syncs through your own iCloud account's private database; there is no LanGaze server and no account to create. Device data fields are end-to-end encrypted (two bookkeeping fields, a timestamp and a schema version, are not).

Sync Now runs a sync immediately and shows whether it succeeded.
Re-download from iCloud fetches every record again and merges it into this device's inventory. Use it if the app shows fewer devices than iCloud reports.
Remove All iCloud Data deletes the synced data from iCloud and turns sync off. Devices on this device are kept. If the removal fails (for example, offline), sync stays on so you can retry.

Names you assign, and edits from different devices, merge field by field: the newest change to each field wins.

What each platform can do

Discovery depends on system capabilities that differ by platform:

macOS is the discovery platform. It reads MAC addresses from the system's ARP table, which is what enables vendor identification. Response times usually stay empty under the App Sandbox; that is expected.
iPhone and iPad cannot read the ARP table, so on their own they mostly see Bonjour devices. Their strength is showing the inventory synced from a Mac, including each device's MAC and vendor learned there.
Scanning is IPv4 only, on the network you are currently connected to.

Keeping the inventory tidy

Settings offers Keep Unlabeled Devices: unlabeled devices not seen within the chosen period (30, 60, or 90 days, or kept forever) are removed automatically. Labeled devices are never pruned. Remove Unlabeled Now clears unlabeled devices immediately; they come back when a scan next sees them.

Import and export

Export Devices in the toolbar menu writes the inventory to a .langaze file for backup or transfer. Import Devices merges such a file into the existing inventory without deleting anything; for each field the newer value wins. The file itself is unencrypted JSON, so treat it like the network map it contains.

Common questions

A device shows no vendor.

Phones and tablets often use a private (randomized) Wi-Fi address, which by design does not map to a manufacturer. The address is stable on your network, so labels still stick.

My iPhone shows fewer devices than my Mac.

Check that iCloud sync is on, on both devices, under Settings. Then use Sync Now, and if the count still lags, Re-download from iCloud on the iPhone.

An edit from another device hasn't appeared.

The app fetches changes when it comes to the foreground. Bringing it forward or pressing Sync Now fetches immediately.

I removed a device and it came back.

Removal deletes the saved record, not the device. If it is still on your network, the next scan re-discovers it. Label it instead if you want to keep track of it.

How do I start over?

Clear Results resets the scan list. Remove Unlabeled Now clears the saved inventory except labels. Remove All iCloud Data clears the cloud copy.

Privacy

LanGaze has no analytics, no tracking, and no developer-operated servers. Scan results stay on your device unless you turn on iCloud sync, which uses only your own iCloud account. See the Privacy Policy for the full statement.

Contact

Questions, issues, and feature requests are tracked at the project's GitHub repository.