How to Control an Android Phone From Your Computer

One of Apple's best recent features is iPhone mirroring, which lets you control an iPhone from a Mac. Scrcpy is a free application for Linux, Windows, and macOS that does the same thing: It allows you to control your Android phone from a window on your computer.

This application takes a bit to set up—it launches from the terminal or command prompt, for one thing, and it only works if you enable developer mode on your Android phone. Once you set it up, though, you can control your Android's screen from your computer, or even turn on a virtual screen so you can launch applications while your phone is off.

To get started, you will need to install Scrcpy (which is just "screen copy" without the vowels). The simplest way to do this is by using a package manager like Homebrew on the Mac or Scoop for Windows. Linux users can use whatever package manager came with their distribution. Using a package manager is recommended because it will also install all dependencies, which is to say it will install all of the tools and drivers you need to use in order to get the application working.

If you don't have a package manager, or just prefer not using one, you can download the latest release and try to run it directly. There are instructions for Linux, macOS, and Windows on the Github page. This is going to be the harder option, though. You will need to ensure all dependencies are installed, so check the documentation for more details.

As always, be careful where you download the application. Do not download Scrcpy from a third party website—stick to either a package manager mentioned in the documentation or download it from the official Github page.

After installing, you need to enable USB debugging on your phone, which requires enabling developer mode. To start, head to Settings > About phone and tap the Build Number until you see a message that say You are now a developer. This will open a new sub-menu under System called Developer options. Open that and turn on USB Debugging. You should now see a message about the feature when you plug in your phone.

Credit: Justin Pot

Plug your phone into your computer and you can start controlling your Android. The simplest way to get started it to simply type scrcp in the command prompt or terminal—this will take control of your phone. You can even open the camera app and point it at your screen to create an extremely confusing screenshot, if you want.

Apple doesn't let you use the camera while mirroring an iPhone. This app does what Appledon't. Credit: Justin Pot

If this doesn't work, there are a number of things you can check. The first is whether you installed all dependencies. The simplest way to solve this is to use a package manager instead of installing directly. On Windows, you might not have the correct drivers installed, or you might not have enabled USB debugging. Check the official FAQ for more details.

By default, you get an exact recreation of what's currently on your phone, but it doesn't have to be that way. For example: You can have a virtual display for your phone on your computer, allowing you to run Android apps while your phone's screen is turned off. Just type scrcpy --new-display=1920x1080 and you're off and running. This is great if there are Android games you want to play on your computer. If you just want to use your computer's mouse and keyboard to control your phone, but not see the display on your screen, you can do that with scrcpy --otg and you can do that.

There's a lot more you can do, though. I'd highly recommend digging into the documentation to learn about that. I promise it's fun.

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