Live Loupe: see your Lightroom edits on your iPhone, live
18 OCT 2026
A free Mac app I built so I'd stop exporting the same photo forty times. What it does, why it matters, and how to set it up in ten minutes.
It's 2 a.m. The edit is finally perfect. You export it, AirDrop it to your phone, open it — and it's not the same photo. The shadows are heavier, the skin tones are warmer, the sky you spent twenty minutes on has turned into a flat gradient. So you go back, nudge a slider, export again, AirDrop again, squint again. By the time it looks right on the phone, your downloads folder holds edit_FINAL_final_v40.jpg.
I got tired of that loop, so I built a small tool to kill it. It's called Live Loupe, and it's free.
What it is
Live Loupe is a tiny macOS companion for Lightroom Classic. It turns your iPhone into a live preview screen for whatever you're editing: your Mac serves the image over your local Wi-Fi, and the phone shows it full-screen in Safari. You pair them by scanning a QR code — there's no app to install on the phone, no account, and nothing is uploaded anywhere.
Why it matters
Your audience lives on a phone. Most people will meet your work on a phone screen, not on your calibrated monitor. That's the screen worth judging the edit on.
Phones show photos differently. A small, bright, high-contrast display changes how shadows, highlights, skin tones and fine gradients read. Problems you can't see on the desk show up instantly in the hand.
No more round trips. Instead of export → AirDrop → check → repeat, you move a slider in Lightroom and watch the phone follow.
Private by design. No cloud sync, no Adobe account involved, no subscription. Your photos never leave your network.
Two ways to use it
Live — mirror your edit in real time
In Live mode, Live Loupe captures your Lightroom window — or just the image area you select with Set image area — and streams it to the phone. Drag Exposure or Temp and the iPhone updates as you go. Three stream profiles let you trade fidelity for battery: Quality, Balanced (recommended) and Battery. This mode needs macOS Screen Recording permission (see setup).
Export — a phone gallery from a folder
In Export mode, Live Loupe serves a folder of exported JPEGs as a clean, swipeable gallery on the phone. It works with any folder of images, and it's great for culling or checking the order of a carousel before you post.
Setup (about ten minutes, once)
You'll need macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later, an iPhone, and both devices on the same Wi-Fi network.
1. Install
Download Live.Loupe.Kit.zip, unzip it, and drag Live Loupe.app into your Applications folder. The kit also contains the optional Lightroom Classic plugin.
2. Let macOS open it
The app isn't notarized by Apple, so the first launch is blocked with a "could not verify" warning. That's expected:
In the warning dialog, click Done (don't move it to the Trash).
Open System Settings → Privacy & Security.
Scroll to Security, find the note that "Live Loupe" was blocked, and click Open Anyway.
Confirm with Touch ID or your password.
You only do this once. (On macOS 14 you can also right-click the app → Open.)
3. Allow Local Network access
Your iPhone talks to a small server on your Mac, so macOS will ask whether Live Loupe may connect to devices on your local network. Click Allow. If you missed it: System Settings → Privacy & Security → Local Network → turn Live Loupe on.
4. Allow Screen Recording (Live mode only)
Go to System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen & System Audio Recording (called Screen Recording on macOS 14), turn Live Loupe on, then quit and reopen the app. Export mode works without this.
5. Connect your iPhone
In Live Loupe, pick a Share Mode: Live or Export.
For Live, click Set image area and frame just the photo, so the phone doesn't show Lightroom's panels. For Export, choose the folder Lightroom exports into (or drag it onto the window).
Press the ▶ start button.
Scan the QR code with the iPhone Camera app — it opens in Safari. That's it.
Use a normal home or studio network. Guest and "AP-isolated" networks block devices from seeing each other.
Optional: the Lightroom Classic plugin
Install Live Loupe.lrplugin from the kit via Lightroom Classic → File → Plug-in Manager → Add…. Its commands live under Library → Plug-in Extras, and are mirrored under File → Plug-in Extras so they work in Develop:
Start Screen Preview — starts the Live screen stream.
Start Export Preview — watches the active photo and writes a live JPEG that the phone shows full-screen and refreshes automatically.
Export Selected to Live Loupe — renders your selection (JPEG, sRGB) into the preview folder and opens the app.
Stop Preview, Start Preview App, Choose Preview Folder…, Reveal Preview Folder and Show Live Loupe Diagnostic Log.
For the lowest latency, start previews from Develop via File → Plug-in Extras.
Recommended export settings
For the folder Live Loupe serves, a fast, screen-sized preset works best: JPEG, sRGB, quality 100, long edge around 2000–2556 px, output sharpening for Screen, destination set to the Live Loupe folder.
A routine that works
Keep the phone on a stand next to the keyboard. Do the edit on the big screen as usual, then make the final pass while looking at the phone: shadow detail, skin tones, sky gradients, and whether the crop still works at 4:5. When it holds up in the hand, it's ready to post.
Troubleshooting
The iPhone can't load the page — make sure both devices are on the same Wi-Fi and Local Network access is on. If
your-mac.localdoesn't resolve, use the IP address from the app's Network list.The live preview is black — enable Screen Recording, then quit and reopen Live Loupe.
macOS keeps blocking the app — use Privacy & Security → Open Anyway instead of double-clicking.
Something else — the log lives at
~/Library/Application Support/Live Loupe/live-debug.log.
Free, local, open source
Live Loupe is free and open source (MIT). It never uploads your photos, needs no account and sends no telemetry — the Mac serves your images only on your own network, only while the app is running. It's an independent tool and isn't affiliated with Adobe.