Use your Android phone from Windows with scrcpy

Stone -

Need a free tool to access and record your Android phone on your Windows PC? Check out the Open Source tool scrcpy. I heard about it from Stephane at work. Here's the FAQ on github. Subscribe to see how easy it is to setup and use!

Setup your Android phone

These steps come from developer.android.com

  1. Put Android phone into debug mode by going to Settings > About > Software version and then tap 6 times
  2. Under Settings > Developer options set Wireless deubgging to ON
  3. Click Wireless debugging > Pair device which gives you a paring code and shows you the IP address and port you will need in the following steps

Setup your Windows PC

  1. Install scrcpy for Windows from github
  2. Start Windows PowerShell and cd to the scrcpy folder
  3. Pair your PC with your Android phone:
./adb pair <IP address>:<port> shown on screen`
3.2 scrcpy

For example:

./adb pair 192.168.0.9:33507

Start the screen mirror

All you do now is run this in PowerShell:

./scrcpy

Record (and not mirror)

To record your Android screen without mirroring it on your PC, use the following:

scrcpy --no-display --record file.mp4

Prevent the device from sleeping

After some delay when the device is plugged in it will go to sleep. To get around that use one of these two:

scrcpy --stay-awake
scrcpy -w

Show physical touches

To show a little hover circle when you click on something on your Android phone use one of these:

scrcpy --show-touches
scrcpy -t
Commands when running

Use the following key combinations in the scrcpy app on Windows to control the phone:

  • zoom: ctrl-click and drag
  • home: alt-h (or middle click)
  • rotate: alt-r (or alt-left arrow)
  • back: alt-b (or right-click)
  • notifications: alt-n
  • power-on: right-click
  • turn off screen: alt-o
  • turn on screen: shift-alt-o

Install an APK

Installing an app is as easy as dragging & dropping the APK file to the scrcpy window!