Preen Plus includes five registered Mac hubs and five remote displays, shared across those hubs. Both monthly and yearly plans have the same allowance. A Preen account is required to subscribe and use Private Relay. Local-network use remains free and needs no account.
Private Relay lets you pair and connect over the internet without first pairing locally. When Local Network is also enabled, Preen can switch back to a working direct connection automatically. See Connecting your devices for setup and troubleshooting.
Private widget backups
Plus also includes Saved widgets: explicit private saves of template source, with 10 MiB per account, up to 50 widgets, 1 MiB per revision and the latest 10 revisions per widget. Restore as a new copy on another Mac; there is no automatic sync. Backups do not require Private Relay or consume hub or display slots. After Plus ends, existing backups remain available to list, download, restore and delete. New uploads require active Plus and separate storage-notice acceptance.
What counts
| Allowance | Counts | Outside the allowance |
|---|---|---|
| Five Mac hubs | Mac installations registered for Plus remote access | Reconnecting the same hub or signing in again |
| Five remote displays | iPhones and iPads signed in with Private Relay switched on, plus every browser device you have created, totaled across all hubs | Multiple requests or sockets from the same display, local connections, Mac Notches, and signed-in phones with Private Relay off |
A display slot is held for as long as the display is set up for remote access, whether or not it is connected right now. An iPhone or iPad takes a slot when you switch on Settings → Private Relay while signed in, and keeps it until you switch Private Relay off or sign out. Reinstalling the app may create a new identity. The five display slots are shared across the entire allowance, not allocated separately to each hub.
Browser devices receive live widgets from your Mac at a stable URL. Each holds a display slot from the moment you create it until you delete it, and allows one active browser client. Only the account owner can view one; visitors who aren’t signed in are asked to sign in.
Manage hubs
Open Preen Plus → Manage hubs in the iOS app or visit your Preen account. Remove an unused Mac before registering a sixth hub. Removing a hub ends its remote authorization and signs it out of the account; its local pairing remains intact. You can register it again later if a slot is free.
App Store purchasers can manage hubs and signed-in remote displays from iOS after signing in to the Preen account linked to the purchase. The account website lists registered hubs separately from signed-in devices and shows how many remote display slots are in use. Refresh to update the counts.
When all display slots are in use
Preen refuses the sixth display when you try to set it up: switching on Private Relay on another iPhone or iPad, or creating another browser device, reports that all five slots are taken. Disconnecting a display does not free its slot. To free one:
- On an iPhone or iPad, switch off Settings → Private Relay or sign out of your Preen account.
- Delete an unused browser device on your account page.
- Sign out a phone or tablet you no longer have from your account page.
Then try again on the new display.
Removing a hub, releasing a display’s slot and entitlement changes reach displays that are already connected within about a minute. If the platform cannot verify an allowance, remote access pauses until verification recovers. Local connections continue to work.
What Private Relay is for
Private Relay carries widget data — text, small structured updates, and the files a widget needs to render. It is not a general-purpose tunnel. It is not sized for streaming audio or video, for continuous media of any kind, or for moving large files, and a widget built that way will exhaust its allowance long before a normal one does.
Each registered Mac hub has a transfer allowance measured over a rolling window. The figure is not published and is set generously — a widget that pushes text every few seconds all day is nowhere near it. Pushing a webcam frame through it several times a second is a different story.
If a hub does spend its allowance, remote access for that Mac pauses until the window resets:
- Private Relay in iOS Settings shows as off, and turning it on explains why and roughly when it resets.
- The away screen says the same thing instead of reporting the Mac as asleep.
- Local network connections keep working normally, as does everything on the Mac itself.
- Nothing is charged for it and no subscription time is lost. Access returns on its own when the window rolls — there is nothing to reset or contact us about.
If you are building something that needs more than this, push a compact summary to the widget and keep the heavy data on the Mac. See Pushing data.
Website and App Store purchases
A website subscription and any App Store purchase linked to that account share one allowance. Paying through both providers does not increase the limits and does not cancel either bill. Apple may report a purchase before it is linked, but that record does not authorize Private Relay until the customer signs in and links it to a Preen account.
Linking a purchase combines its hubs with the account’s hubs. If the combined list exceeds five, remove unused hubs before syncing the purchase again.
The Terms of Use define the subscription and allowance. The Privacy Policy explains the limited metadata used to administer it.
After removing a hub, sign in again on that Mac or scan its pairing code to register it again. Background reconnects cannot undo a removal.