How to display and control your Android device on your desktop computer
Sometimes, it may be useful to display the screen of an Android device on your computer, and to control the device using the computer's mouse and keyboard. Besides gaining control over devices with a dead screen, it may also prove useful in other cases, including improving readability, for documentation and research, for watching the latest TikTok videos on your PC, using mouse and keyboard on Android, or for recording the Android screen.
One of the easiest options to display and control Android devices on desktop computers is provided by the open source tool scrcpy. The developer of the tool released version 2.0 of the application recently.
What makes scrcpy a good option, besides that it is open source, is that it requires no installation on the Android device, and just a small program on the desktop PC.
The application supports several features, including the ability to record the screen of the device, even if it is off on the Android device, two-way copy-paste functionality, support for mouse and keyboard input, audio forwarding on Android 11 and up, and more.
Requirements
There are just a few requirements. Scrcpy requires Android 5.0 or newer, but Android 11 or newer is advised, as it includes support for audio forwarding to the desktop PC.
USB debugging needs to be enabled on the Android device. It is a developer option. Different manufacturers have different ways to enable this. Usually, it involves tapping on the build number of the Android device for a few times until "you are now a developer" appears.
It may also be necessary to enable an additional USB debugging (Security settings) preference on some devices, which is explained here.
All that is left now is to download the latest version of scrcpy to the desktop computer. The software is available for Windows, Mac and Linux devices.
Using scrcpy
Connect the Android device to the desktop computer using an USB cable. Once done, open a command prompt window and run the scrcpy command from the directory of the application. You should get a prompt on Android to allow or decline the USB debugging connection.
Note: You may also use the application wirelessly, as explained on the developer's blog.
Allow it for the session or permanently. Once done, the Android screen is displayed on the screen. You may now use the mouse and keyboard to control the Android device. Any action made on the PC is reflected on the Android device.
This opens up several interesting possibilities, such as taking screenshots, recording the screen or audio, or using the keyboard to write messages, comments and run searches. There is a slight delay between actions carried out on the desktop computer and the Android device; this means that some activities on the device, e.g., certain games that require quick reflexes, may not work as good using the provided functionality.
Closing Words
Scrcpy is an excellent open source application to control Android devices on desktop PCs.
Now You: do you connect your mobile devices to your desktop computers?
Thanks for the tip Martin.
It is for these kinds of posts that I follow GHacks.
What’s up with the generic comment, are you a bot?
2G?
Where on the planet is that still in use? I was forced to give up using my RAZRV3 years ago because 2G was phased out by AT&T.
Everywhere 3G has been turned off and you don’t have LTE coverage, and believe me there are many developed countries where this is the case and if it weren’t for 2G you wouldn’t even be able to make a phone call.
Maybe I missed it, but I don’t believe tha term “2G” is in the article. Perhaps you are referring to “AGM G2”??
@Martin
Your website has gone insane.
When I the post button I then saw my comment posted on a different article page. When I opened this article again, it is here.
@Tachy @Martin Brinkmann
” Your website has gone insane. ”
Same here. Has happened several times.
@Tachy,
@Martin P.,
For over two weeks now,
I’ve been seeing “Comments” posted by subscribers appearing in different, unrelated articles.
https://www.ghacks.net/windows-11-update-stuck-fixed-for-good/#comment-4572991
https://www.ghacks.net/windows-11-update-stuck-fixed-for-good/#comment-4572951
For the time being,
it would be better to specify the “article name and URL” at the beginning of the post.
@tachy a lot of non-phone devices with a sim in them rely on 2G, at least here in europe.
Usually things reporting usage or errors/alarms on something remote that does not get day to day inspection in person. They are out there in vast numbers doing important work. Reliable, good range. The low datarate is no problem at all in those cases.
3G is gone or on its last legs everywhere, but this stuff still has too much use to cancel.
Anyhow, interesting that they would put that in. I can see the point if you suspect a hostile 2G environment (amateur eavesdroppers with laptop, ranging up to professional grade MITM fake towers while “strangely” not getting the stronger crypto voip 4G because it is being jammed, and back down to something as old ‘stingray’ devices fallen into the wrong hands).
But does this also mean that they have handled and rolled out a fix for that nasty 4G ‘pwn by broadcast’ problem you reported earlier this year? I had 4G disabled due to that, on the off chance that some of the local criminals would buy some cheap chinese gear, download a working exploit and probe every phone in range all over town in the hope of getting into phones of the police.
>”While most may never be attacked in stingrays, it is still recommended to disable 2G cellular connections, especially since it does not have any downsides.”
The downside would be losing connectivity. I spend a lot of time way out in the countryside where there’s often no service or almost none. My network allows 2G, and I need it sometimes. I have an option on the phone to disable 2G, I may do that when I’m in the city and I have good 5G connectivity, but not out in the country.
I would imagine that the stingray exploits, like most of the bad things in this world, are probably things you will run into in the crowded big cities.
I stopped using it in a mobile (Wi-Fi line) environment, so I’m almost ignorant of the actual situation,
But the recent reality in Japan makes me realize that “the infrastructure of the web is nothing more than a papier-mâché fiction”.
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/17/google-chrome-to-enable-https-first-by-default-for-all-users/#comment-4572402
It is already beyond the scope of what an individual can do.
What we should be aware of is the reality that “governments and those in power want to control the world through the Web”, and efforts to counter (resist and prevent) such ambitions are necessary.
Why do you want people to disable the privacy features? Hmmmmm?
Now You: do you plan to keep the Ads privacy features enabled?
I’d like to tell you, but apparently if you make a post critical of Google, you get censored. * [Editor: removed, just try to bring your opinion across without attacking anyone]
@Martin
You website is still psychotic. Comments attach to random stories.
@Martin please do fix the comments, it’s completely insane commenting here! :[
@Martin
The comments are seriously messed up on gHacks now. These comments are mixed with the article at the below URL.
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/18/android-how-to-disable-2g-cellular-connections-to-improve-security/
And comments on other articles are from as far back as 2010.
What does this article has anything to do with all the comments on this article? LOL I think this Websuite is ran by ChatGPT. every article is messed up. Some older comments from 2015 shown up in recant articles, LOL
The picture captioned “Clearing the Android Auto’s cache might resolve the issue” is from Apple Carplay ;)
How about other things that matter:
Drop survival?
Screen toughness?
Degree of water and dust protection?