Remote access
Reaching your Pluto Photos library from outside your home network
Pluto Companion normally talks to your computer over your own Wi-Fi, and nothing leaves your network. Remote access lets the app reach the same computer when you are somewhere else — on mobile data, at work, travelling — by opening one port on your router.
This is optional. If you only ever back up at home, you do not need any of it.
Before you start
- Pair the phone at home first, on the same Wi-Fi. Pairing is what exchanges the access token and your computer's certificate, and it cannot be done from outside the network.
- You need access to your router's admin page.
- Leave Pluto Photos running on the computer. It answers the phone; if the app is closed or the computer is asleep, there is nothing to reach.
1. Pair on your home Wi-Fi
In Pluto Photos on the desktop, click Admin in the top toolbar, open Mobile Companion, and click Show Pairing QR Code. Scan it with Pluto Companion on the phone.
2. Set a PIN
In the same Admin → Mobile Companion panel, find PIN protection and click Set PIN. Four to eight digits.
Do this before you forward anything. A PIN is what stops a stranger who finds the open port from pairing a phone of their own. Five wrong attempts lock that address out for 15 minutes.
3. Give the computer a fixed local IP
Routers hand out local addresses on a lease, so the computer that is 192.168.1.42 today can be 192.168.1.57 after a reboot — and a forward pointing at the old address silently stops working. In your router's admin page, look for DHCP reservation or Static lease and reserve the computer's current address for it.
4. Forward the port
In your router, under Port Forwarding (often inside Advanced, NAT or Gaming), add one rule:
| Protocol | TCP |
|---|---|
| External port | 3456 |
| Internal port | 3456 |
| Internal IP | the computer's local address from step 3 |
Forward only 3456. Pluto also listens on 3457, but that port does nothing except redirect to the encrypted one, and it has no reason to be reachable from the internet.
If your computer's firewall prompts about Pluto Photos, allow it on private networks.
5. Tell the app where to find you
In Pluto Companion, open Settings → Remote access. The Computer's public IP row is filled in by your computer itself while the phone is on home Wi-Fi — tap Detect if it is empty, or type the address in by hand.
You do not need to pair again. The app tries your home network first and falls back to this address automatically when it cannot find the computer locally, so the same install works in both places.
6. Test it
Turn Wi-Fi off on the phone so it is on mobile data, and open Pluto Companion. If the library loads, remote access is working. Turn Wi-Fi back on afterwards — backing up a camera roll over mobile data can be expensive.
How it is secured
- Encrypted. The connection is HTTPS. Because the certificate is generated by your own computer rather than bought from a certificate authority, the app records its fingerprint when you pair and refuses anything else afterwards — so a machine impersonating your computer is rejected even if it answers on the same address.
- Per-device tokens. Each paired phone gets its own key. You can see paired devices, and revoke any of them, under Admin → Mobile Companion on the desktop or Settings → Paired devices in the app.
- PIN-gated pairing. A new device cannot pair without the PIN, and repeated failures lock the address out.
If it does not work
Your public IP starts with 100.64 – 100.127
That is carrier-grade NAT: your internet provider has put you behind their own router, and the address is not reachable from the internet no matter what you forward. Port forwarding cannot fix this. Either ask your provider for a public IP address (some offer one, sometimes for a fee), or use a VPN or mesh network such as Tailscale or WireGuard, which connects the phone to your home network without opening anything.
It worked, then stopped
Most home connections get a new public IP every so often. The app refreshes the address from your computer whenever the phone is back on home Wi-Fi, so this usually corrects itself. If you are away for long stretches, a dynamic-DNS name from your router's settings gives you a hostname that follows the address, and you can type that into the Remote access field instead of a number.
Nothing connects from outside, but home works fine
- Check the computer is awake and Pluto Photos is open.
- Check the forward points at the computer's current local IP (step 3).
- If you have your own router behind the provider's box, the port has to be forwarded on both — this is called double NAT, and one hop is not enough.
The app says it cannot verify your computer's certificate
The desktop's certificate has changed since you paired — most often because the app's data was reset or Pluto was reinstalled. Pair again from the QR code on your home Wi-Fi.
Still stuck?
Email support@plutophotos.com with your router model and what step it fails at, and a person who works on the app will answer.