Auto iPhone Uploader drives social apps on a connected iPhone. That is a lot to trust a download with, so this page says exactly what it does, what it never does, and how to check the code you run is the code published here.

• A local web server bound to 127.0.0.1:4748. It is not reachable from other devices on your network, and it rejects requests whose Host or Origin is not that local address.
• A phone link supervisor (video_drop/link_supervisor.py), one background process that starts and watches the three go-ios processes the phone needs: the USB tunnel, the WebDriverAgent runner and the port forwards on 127.0.0.1:8100 and 127.0.0.1:9100. It is the only thing that starts or stops them.
• The app's network calls at run time go only to programs on the same computer: the local Ollama model server (127.0.0.1:11434 by default) and the phone link on 127.0.0.1:8100. tests/test_security_claims.py fails the build if code gains any other address.
• The one outside address in the app is a plain link in Settings > Setup to this repository on github.com. The app never requests it; your browser opens it only when you click it.
• The phone driver is part of this repository (video_drop/phone/, copied from SideTap, MIT; provenance and every change in video_drop/phone/VENDORED.md). Nothing is imported from a separate install at run time.
• Setup (scripts/install_windows.ps1) is the one step that reaches the internet, and it says so in its header:
  • pip installs the pinned packages from requirements.txt and, as a separate process-only tool, pymobiledevice3 from requirements-resign.txt;
  • it downloads two files from their official GitHub releases and refuses them unless their SHA-256 matches the value pinned in the script: go-ios 1.3.2 (ios.exe, unpacked into tools\go-ios\) and the unsigned WebDriverAgent 16.12.9 runner (repacked as wda\WebDriverAgent.ipa). Neither is committed to this repository or shipped in a release zip;
  • it writes GO_IOS_PATH and WDA_IPA into .env, creates a Desktop shortcut and a Startup entry (server plus link supervisor, no browser window), and runs the read-only checklist. It installs no drivers or services and does not touch the phone. -CheckOnly downloads and writes nothing.
• The USB recovery helper is installed only when you run scripts/install_windows.ps1 -InstallUsbHelper and accept Windows' administrator prompt. It is the one piece that runs elevated: an on-demand scheduled task (\AutoIphoneUploader\UsbRecovery, no trigger) that runs as SYSTEM a script copied to %ProgramData%\AutoIphoneUploader\usb-helper\, a folder only SYSTEM and Administrators can write. It can do exactly two things: restart Apple Mobile Device Service, and restart the iPhone's own USB device node (USB\VID_05AC&PID_12A8). It takes no parameters and runs no command built from a request; it only acts on a request file owned by the account that installed it, less than 120 s old, at most once every 30 s, and logs every accepted or refused request. The app itself never runs elevated. -UninstallUsbHelper removes the task and the folder. The design and threat model are in docs/usb-recovery-helper.md, and tests/test_usb_helper.py pins those properties against the source.
• To find the YouTube rows the app hides from accessibility, the YouTube runner reads a phone screenshot with Windows' built-in OCR engine (Windows.Media.Ocr, through video_drop/ocr/winocr.ps1). It runs offline; the screenshot is written to a temporary folder and deleted after the read.
• The setup checklist only reads: it imports the driver in a child process, counts USB iPhones with ios list (it keeps the count, not the device ID), asks the phone link and Ollama whether they are running, reads the WebDriverAgent signing profile's expiry off the phone, checks whether PHONE_PASSCODE is set (never its value), queries the Apple Mobile Device Service and Windows USB power settings, checks whether the USB recovery helper's script and task exist, reads the iPhone's USB path up to its controller from Windows' device tree (it keeps the controller type and the hub count, not the device ID), reads the phone's battery level and charging current once with ios batteryregistry, asks Windows whether an OCR language is installed, and looks for OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox and iCloud Drive folders on this PC.
• scripts/set_passcode.py (optional) asks for the passcode at a hidden prompt and writes it to .env as PHONE_PASSCODE; it never prints it.
• Drafts, settings, the local database, the phone link's pid files and logs, cover screenshots and the re-sign material stay in the ignored .state/ folder. Keep that folder private: go-ios logs there can name your device.

• phone_onboard.py and Check phone are read-only: they record screen size, which social apps are installed, and which YouTube channels are signed in.
• Before a run the app can unlock the phone. That needs PHONE_PASSCODE in the app's .env (opt-in). The driver types it only when the lock-screen passcode pad is on screen, refuses to type any text that contains it anywhere else, and scrubs it from error messages. It is never logged, shown in the editor or sent anywhere.
• The runners open OneDrive to find the exact video, share it into the app, check the signed-in account matches the one you set (when Instagram is on another of your signed-in accounts, the runner switches to the one you set through Instagram's own account switcher and proves it from the profile header; it never signs in or out), fill in the text you approved in the editor, and check the cover is the video's first frame before the final tap. Post now posts through the YouTube app, through Instagram via Meta's Edits app (with Instagram's own Facebook and Threads "Also share on" switches), and through the TikTok app. In Schedule mode the YouTube and Instagram runners enter your slot in each app's own scheduler; TikTok is posted by the app at the slot; Threads is left for you.
• After a final tap, the app looks at Instagram's and Threads' own profile screens up to four times in the next hour to confirm the post (read-only: it opens the app, taps the Profile tab and reads the screen; it never posts, edits or deletes). It waits while another phone action runs or the link is not ready. Settings → Check each post in the apps afterwards turns it off.
• A post is only submitted for text you confirmed, to the account you set. A final tap that times out is recorded as unconfirmed and never retried automatically.

WebDriverAgent must be signed with your own Apple ID before the phone accepts it. You do that in Sideloadly, a separate program this project does not bundle, download or automate; Apple's password and 2FA prompts appear in Sideloadly, never in this app. Sideloadly leaves the runner's nested test bundle unsigned, so scripts/phone_resign.py then re-signs wda\WebDriverAgent.ipa with go-ios. To do that it builds a signing identity from the certificate Sideloadly created (%APPDATA%\Sideloadly, into .state\phone\wda.p12) and reads the provisioning profile Apple minted back off the phone with pymobiledevice3, run as a separate process. It never sees your Apple ID password and makes no network call. A free Apple ID's signature lasts 7 days; the checklist counts it down.

The app never stores or reads your Apple ID, device ID or platform passwords, and it never uploads through a platform website.

Each release has a source zip built by GitHub Actions from the tagged commit, after the test suite passed on that commit, a SHA256SUMS.txt, and a signed build-provenance attestation. Check that your zip was built from this repository:

gh attestation verify auto-iphone-uploader-v1.0.0-rc.4.zip --repo thedevmark/auto-iphone-uploader

Or compare its hash with SHA256SUMS.txt:

Get-FileHash auto-iphone-uploader-v1.0.0-rc.4.zip -Algorithm SHA256

The Windows installer, AutoiPhoneUploader-Setup-<version>.exe, is built by the same workflow, attested the same way (gh attestation verify works on it) and listed in SHA256SUMS.txt. It is not code-signed, so SmartScreen warns the first time you run it. It is a per-user installer (no administrator rights) that carries the pinned official Windows embeddable Python and the packages from requirements.txt and requirements-resign.txt, and downloads go-ios and WebDriverAgent against the SHA-256 values below.

The zip is plain Python, HTML and JSON with the third-party license texts in third_party/; it contains no compiled binaries, so you can read it before running it. The two binaries the installer fetches are verified against SHA-256 values you can read in scripts/install_windows.ps1 and compare with the digest GitHub shows for those release assets. CodeQL scans every change. When a VT_API_KEY secret is present, the release workflow also scans the zip with VirusTotal and links the report from the release notes and the README badge.

Use private vulnerability reporting rather than a public issue.