---
title: "Add other Macs"
description: "Optionally collect work spread across several Macs through a private Tailscale connection."
---

> Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://trails.manzanita.dev/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Add other Macs

A one-Mac installation is complete. Add other Macs only when your work has a render-farm shape: sessions are spread across a desktop, laptop, or other machines and you want one combined timeline.

The Mac that already owns canonical state remains the **hub**. Each additional Mac is a **spoke**. Hub and spoke are roles in the same standalone trails binary, not separate products. The hub continues collecting its own sessions.

## Before you begin

1. Finish [the one-Mac setup](/start-here) on the hub.
2. Install [Tailscale for macOS](https://tailscale.com/download/mac) on the hub and every spoke.
3. Connect every participating Mac to the same tailnet.

Tailscale is the private network between these Macs. It does not run trails or store trails data.

## Expose the hub privately

Rerun setup on the hub with Tailscale access enabled:

Setup keeps the local service on `127.0.0.1:7412`, then configures Tailscale Serve to proxy it privately. Trails never opens a LAN listener.

When setup finishes, it prints the hub machine's private MagicDNS URL, similar to:

```text
https://your-hub.your-tailnet.ts.net/
```

Open that URL from a device on the same tailnet before adding spokes.

## Join a spoke

Run the installer on an additional Mac, replacing the example URL with the healthy URL printed by the hub:

Replace `Laptop` with the name you want trails to show for that Mac. Repeat this step for each additional spoke.

Each spoke parses its own Claude Code, Codex, omp, and pi sessions locally, then sends normalized observations to the hub once a minute. Raw transcript bodies and transcript paths stay on the originating Mac.

## Keep the ordinary URL unless it becomes a problem

The default multi-Mac URL follows the hub machine's MagicDNS name. That is the right setup for most people.

Tailnet administrators who need a stable address that survives moving trails to another hub can configure a named Tailscale Service. This changes the hub's Tailscale identity and access model, so it is intentionally separate from the quickstart.

[Configure a stable Tailscale Service →](/advanced/tailscale-services)

## Updating this setup

Rerun the same modes you used originally:

- use `hub --tailscale` on the hub;
- use `join HUB_URL` on each spoke.

Device identity, configuration, the database, and backups are preserved. See [Update trails](/operate/updating) for the exact commands.

Source: https://trails.manzanita.dev/add-other-macs/index.mdx