Autopilot is the companion macOS app for ViralSlides. It drives an iPhone you own, connected to your Mac, to warm up TikTok and Instagram accounts with ordinary, human-paced behaviour. The same app receives the slideshows you send to it from ViralSlides.
This post walks through the setup and what to look for in your first session. The reference version lives in the Autopilot docs.
What you need
- A Mac running macOS 13 or later, which can stay awake and online while sessions run. It is the controller; if it sleeps, nothing runs.
- An iPhone with the TikTok or Instagram app installed and the account you want warmed already signed in. It can be a phone you use every day or an older one that stays on the desk.
- A cable to connect the phone to the Mac. A reliable cable matters more than you would think; if the connection drops, the session stops.
- A ViralSlides Pro or Business plan. Autopilot is not available on Free or Starter. The plan limits (Macs, phones at once, accounts) are listed in the docs and on the pricing page.
Step 1: create a licence key
In your ViralSlides workspace, open Autopilot devices and create a licence for the Mac you will use. Name it after that Mac so you can tell licences apart later.
Copy the key when it appears. It is shown once.
Step 2: activate Autopilot on the Mac
Open Autopilot on the Mac and paste the key into the licence chip in the top bar. The key binds to the first Mac that activates it.
If you later move to a new Mac, release the licence from your workspace so the same key can move. Revoking a key is different: it stops that Mac from warming and the key cannot be used again. The difference is explained in the connect section of the docs.
Step 3: connect the phone
Plug the iPhone into the Mac with the cable. If the phone asks whether to trust the computer, confirm on the phone. Autopilot should show the phone as connected.
If the phone is locked when a session starts, Autopilot asks for its passcode. You can enter it just for that session, or let the Mac remember it in its Keychain. How that works, and what happens at the end of a session, is covered in running warm-up on the iPhone you also use every day.
Step 4: run your first session by hand
Before you schedule anything, start one session yourself and watch it for a few minutes. You are checking that everything works, and getting a feel for what the account is doing.
A normal first session looks fairly unremarkable:
- The app opens and the feed scrolls at an uneven pace.
- Some posts are skipped quickly, some are watched to the end.
- Photo posts are swiped through rather than stared at.
- Now and then a post gets a like, a comment thread gets opened and closed, or the feed scrolls back to the previous post.
- Ads get a brief glance and no engagement.
If that sounds like how you scroll, that is the idea. The details are in how a person actually watches TikTok, why a warm-up account should skip ads and reading comments during warm-up.
You can press Stop at any time.
Step 5: set session length and a daily plan
Once the first session looks right, set up the routine:
- Session length. 20 minutes is the default. For a new account, keep it in a modest range.
- Daily plan. Pick the hours at which connected phones should start a session, and whether that happens every day, on weekdays or on weekends.
Choosing these numbers is covered in how many minutes a day to warm up. The short version: moderate, varied sessions over several days, with no fixed rhythm.
If the phone does not show up
Most setup problems come down to the connection:
- Try a different cable or port, especially if you are using a hub.
- Unlock the phone and check for a trust prompt you may have missed.
- Make sure the Mac is not asleep, and that Autopilot is open.
- Quit and reopen Autopilot after plugging the phone in again.
Step 6: let the account mature before posting
Autopilot does not post from a fresh account. Each account ramps up its daily activity over several days, mostly watching, before it is considered ready to post. That process, and why posting on day one is the clearest bot signal, is described in what an automated warm-up ramp looks like.
Once an account is ready, any finished ViralSlides slideshow can be sent to a connected phone with Send to Autopilot. You choose which account it is for, adjust the caption if you like, and it shows up under Ready to post in the Autopilot app on your Mac.
First-week checklist
- Licence created and activated on the Mac.
- Phone connected, trusted, and showing in Autopilot.
- The right account signed in on the phone.
- One manual session watched from start to finish.
- Session length and daily plan set.
- Daily check for anything unusual on the phone, such as a verification prompt or captcha. If one appears, pause and read how to recover a throttled account before continuing.
Before you start: the risk
Automating an account, with Autopilot or anything else, breaks TikTok's and Instagram's terms of service. Realistic behaviour on a real phone reduces the obvious signals, but it does not make the practice permitted, and accounts can be banned. Use it on accounts you are willing to lose, and do not expect it to fix weak content. If you are not sure where your account stands, start with the free 0-view fixer.