An extension of your house, not a door into it
Think of it less like "remote access" and more like stretching your home network across the planet. Tailscale is software that quietly connects your own devices — and only your own devices — into one private network, no matter where they physically are. Your Mac at home and your iPhone across town end up feeling like they're on the same Wi-Fi, because as far as the connection is concerned, they are.
Everything that passes between them is encrypted end to end. Nothing routes through us, or through anyone else. It's the same home network, simply reaching further.
Your library still lives in your house. This just makes the house bigger.
How Raza uses it
Raza Photos and Raza Songs don't create this network or manage it. All either app does is notice, during your normal at-home connection, that your Mac also has a Tailscale address — and quietly remember it for later.
Your iPhone finds your Mac over Bonjour, exactly like it always has. Nothing about this part changes.
If Tailscale is turned on for both devices, the Mac passes along its Tailscale address during that same handshake — nothing more than an address, learned in passing, the way a neighbor might mention their back-door key is under the mat.
Once your iPhone leaves your home Wi-Fi, it can no longer hear Bonjour — so it tries the Tailscale address it already learned. If both devices are still on the same Tailscale network, they reconnect, privately and directly.
Browsing, editing, playback — all identical to being home. The app doesn't distinguish between the two; it just connects.
Why this is still safe
Two things have to be true before any of this works, and neither one is something Raza controls or can bypass:
Joining a Tailscale network happens entirely inside Tailscale, by invitation. If a device is on your network, you already decided it belongs there.
There is no field anywhere in Raza to enter an IP address or connect to somewhere new. Your iPhone only ever learns your Mac's address by being home with it first.
This isn't "the library is now on the internet." It's the library recognizing a key it was handed at home — one that happens to still work from anywhere.
Turning it on
It's a single toggle in Settings on your Mac, shown only once Tailscale is detected. Nothing changes for anyone until you turn it on — Bonjour and your home network keep working exactly as before either way.
Tailscale itself is separate, independent software with its own setup and its own support. Raza doesn't manage it — it just recognizes an address when it sees one.