There are a number of great reasons for why you may want to mirror your Android phone or tablet to your PC. Doing so would allow you to not only get a bigger screen for viewing the content on your phone, but you can use your computer's keyboard and mouse to respond to messages on mobile-only apps, navigate through your phone's files, edit photos and even enjoy some Android gaming with a keyboard instead of on a touch screen, where supported.
On the Google Play Store, plenty of paid apps can be found, that offer Android-to-Windows PC mirroring, of varying success. Most of them require you to download a desktop client along with their mobile app, register an account, and more things you may want to skip. So we're going to take a look at a completely free, simple Windows application that does what we're after perfectly, and requires very little tinkering with your phone.
The short version of how to mirror an Android phone's screen to a Windows PC
Download and extract the scrcpy program on your Windows computer
Enable USB Debugging on your Android phone, via Settings > Developer options
Connect your Windows PC with the phone via a USB cable
Tap "Allow USB Debugging" on your phone
(Optional) On the PC, press Ctrl+F to mirror your phone in fullscreen
The detailed process
1. Getting the Windows application
The software in question is called scrcpy, which, perhaps due to its name being difficult to remember and discover, isn't as popular as it should be. After opening the linked page, and scrolling down to the "Get the app" section, click the link under "Windows" to download it on your PC. Then simply extract the downloaded archive wherever you want, and we're done with the PC part for now.
Note: Mac and Linux users can run this software too, with instructions shown on its page, but we'll focus on Windows for now.
2. Preparing your phone for mirroring by enabling USB Debugging
To use this app, your phone or tablet has to be running Android 5.0 or higher. You will need to enable Developer options in order to also enable USB Debugging on it, for this to work.
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To enable Developer options, go to your phone's Settings, then to About Phone, and tap "Build number" repeatedly until a message pops up, letting you know you've enabled Developer options successfully. For a detailed walkthrough with pictures, see this article.
Now back in Settings you should be able to find "Developer options." After clicking it, you'll see yet another Developer options button, tap that to unlock the extra features, then carefully scroll down until you find the "USB debugging" option, and enable that. You can now go back to the phone's home screen.
Note: Avoid tinkering with anything else in Developer options, as it may lead to unwanted changes to your device's interface or behavior. Some phones and tablets, notably Xiaomi ones, also have an additional option that needs to be enabled, named "USB debugging (Security settings)."
Here we're using the free Sentio Android launcher to run three Android apps at the same time. Galaxy phone users can use Samsung Dex to get this experience.
3. Connecting your Android device and PC via a USB cable
Now we're ready to connect the phone to the Windows PC via USB. After doing that, on your PC, go to the folder where you extracted scrcpy and open the application of the same name. The first time you do this, your phone may request that you allow USB debugging from the connected computer, just tap OK.
Now, when you run the "scrcpy" application, you should see a window with your phone's screen, which you can move around, resize, and change to fullscreen by pressing Ctrl+F. Use your computer's keyboard and mouse to navigate through your phone, respond to text messages, edit files, and more. In addition, you can drag files from your PC to that screen, which will be transferred to the phone's Downloads folder.
And we're done! You can now see and control your smartphone from your Windows PC with minimal latency, as we're using a USB connection instead of a wireless one.
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Rado, a tech enthusiast with a love for mobile devices, brings his passion for Android and iPadOS to PhoneArena. His tech journey began with MP3 players and has evolved to include tinkering with Android tablets and iPads, even running Linux and Windows 95 on them. Beyond tech, Rado is a published author, music producer, and PC game developer. His professional work on iPads, from producing songs to editing videos, showcases his belief in their capabilities. Rado looks forward to the future of mobile tech, particularly in augmented reality and multi-screen smartphones.
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