A Tour of the Coder IDE Desktop App

Most of the time, you don't think about the Coder IDE app on your computer. It sits in the system tray, keeps your editor available to your phone and browser, and updates itself. But when you want to know what's running, why a preview won't load, or which settings your editor starts with, the desktop app is where you look. This tour walks through every part of it.

What the desktop app is

When you install Coder IDE on a computer, you get two things: the background service that serves VS Code to your phone and browser, and a small desktop app to look after it. The desktop app runs on Windows, macOS and Linux and lives in the system tray, or the menu bar on a Mac.

The tray icon's menu gives you the basics without opening anything: the computer's current status, start and stop, Check for updates, Launch at login, Claude session alerts, and Quit Coder IDE. Choose Open Manager for the full window.

The window keeps a small footprint. It only exists while it's open, and closing it leaves just the tray icon behind.

Signing in a computer

The first time you open the app, it asks you to Sign in this computer. Click Sign in and your browser opens to approve the device. You confirm the code from a browser where you're already signed in to Coder IDE, and the computer appears on your dashboard. If the browser doesn't open by itself, the app shows the link and the code so you can do it by hand.

After you approve, your system asks for administrator permission, so Coder IDE can start with your computer. The whole thing takes about a minute. For why each computer has to be approved by you, see how Coder IDE keeps your code safe.

Overview, sessions, ports and logs

The top of the window always shows the computer's name and a status badge. Down the side are five sections.

Overview is the health check: whether Coder IDE is running and connected, its version, how long it's been up and how much memory it's using. If an update has been downloaded and is waiting, it says so here, along with when it'll be applied.

Sessions lists the editors running on this computer right now, which start when you open the computer from the dashboard or the phone app. Each row shows when it started, when it was last used, and when it will stop if auto-suspend is on. You can stop any of them from here.

Ports lists the dev servers your sessions have forwarded. Ports you've hidden still appear here, marked as hidden, but they aren't offered to your phone or browser. More on previews in ports and private previews.

Logs shows the live log while Coder IDE is running. If it's stopped, you see the most recent log saved on disk, which is usually what you want when something went wrong.

There's also an appearance switch at the bottom of the sidebar: match your system, light or dark.

Settings: General and Editor

Settings is split into five tabs: General, Editor, Updates, Account and Diagnostics.

General covers how Coder IDE fits into your computer:

• Projects folder is where new projects open by default. It's synced with the web dashboard, so changing it in either place changes both.
• Startup lets you open Coder IDE in the tray when you log in, and install a boot service that starts Coder IDE when the computer boots, before anyone logs in. That's useful for a desktop at home you want to reach even after a restart.
• Claude session alerts is the switch for seeing and approving Claude Code sessions from your phone and the web. It's on by default, and you can flip it here or straight from the tray menu.

Editor covers the VS Code your phone and browser open:

• Editor auto-suspend stops an editor nobody has used for a while: off, 10, 20 or 30 minutes, or 1 hour. It's synced with the dashboard, and it waits for a running Claude Code task to finish. Projects and auto-suspend explains it in full.
• Settings and extensions decides what the editor starts with. Pick Cloud settings to use the settings synced with your Coder IDE account, import the setup of VS Code, VS Code Insiders, VSCodium, Cursor or Windsurf if one is installed on this computer, or choose a custom folder with a settings.json, such as a backup of your setup. The change applies the next time an editor starts.

The editor Coder IDE serves keeps its settings and extensions in its own place. If you also use VS Code's Remote-SSH to reach the same computer, the two don't interfere: nothing Coder IDE changes shows up in your Remote-SSH sessions, and the other way round.

Updates that look after themselves

The desktop app and the editor it serves keep themselves up to date. They check about once a day, and you don't need to do anything.

The Updates tab is for when you want to check now. It has two rows:

• Coder IDE, the app and its background service, with a Check for updates button.
• Coder IDE CLI, the editor itself, with its installed version and its own Check for updates button.

Updates are careful about timing. If Claude Code is in the middle of a task, an update waits until Claude finishes what it's working on, so an update never cuts off a long refactor.

Account, security number and removing a computer

The Account tab has three ways to part with a computer, from lightest to heaviest:

• Sign out removes this computer's credentials. Your editor isn't served until you sign in again.
• Unlink this computer removes it from your account and signs it out. It disappears from your devices and can't be opened from your phone or the web until you sign it in again.
• Uninstall removes Coder IDE from the computer entirely. You can also choose to delete the editor's data, its extensions and settings, at the same time.

Each one asks you to confirm first.

The Security section on this tab can show the computer's security number. Compare it with the number shown in your browser or phone to make sure nobody is in the middle of the connection.

Diagnostics and repairs

When something isn't working, open Diagnostics and press Run checks. It checks sign-in, the background service, the boot service, the editor and the connection to Coder IDE, and shows a result and detail for each. It's the fastest way to find out whether a problem is on your computer or somewhere else.

If an install gets into a bad state, the Coder IDE installer can repair or clean up an existing install, as well as set up a new one.

Wrap-up

The desktop app is the part of Coder IDE you can mostly ignore, which is the point. It keeps your editor available and up to date, waits for Claude before updating, and gives you one place to see sessions, ports and logs, choose your editor settings, and decide what this computer is allowed to do.

For how it all fits together, start with how Coder IDE works.

Get started free. One install command on your computer, and the desktop app does the rest.