explaingit

genymobile/scrcpy

🔥 Hot141,928CAudience · developerComplexity · 2/5ActiveLicenseSetup · moderate

TLDR

Mirror your Android phone's screen and audio to your computer, and control it with your keyboard and mouse, no root, no installation, low lag.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((scrcpy))
    What it does
      Screen mirroring
      Audio forwarding
      Keyboard control
      Mouse control
    Key features
      Screen recording
      Gamepad support
      Camera as webcam
      Virtual displays
    How to use
      USB connection
      Wireless TCP/IP
      Command-line tool
      Many config options
    Use cases
      Presentations
      App testing
      Gaming
      Screen recording
    Tech stack
      C language
      H.265 codec
      V4L2 on Linux
      HID protocol
    Requirements
      Android 5.0 minimum
      Linux Windows macOS

Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Demo or present your Android app on a large monitor during meetings or conferences.

USE CASE 2

Record gameplay or app interactions for testing, tutorials, or social media content.

USE CASE 3

Test your Android app on a real device while controlling it from your desktop keyboard and mouse.

USE CASE 4

Use your phone's camera as a webcam for video calls on your computer.

Tech stack

CH.265V4L2HIDUSBTCP/IP

Getting it running

Difficulty · moderate Time to first run · 30min

Requires USB connection to Android device and platform-specific driver/codec setup (H.265 support, V4L2 on Linux).

Use freely for any purpose, including commercial use, as long as you include the original copyright notice and license text.

In plain English

scrcpy, pronounced "screen copy," is an application that mirrors an Android device's screen and audio to your computer and lets you control the device using your computer's keyboard and mouse. The basic problem it solves is that you sometimes want to use, demo, test, or record an Android device on a bigger screen with desktop input, and existing solutions either need root access, install software on the phone, or have noticeable lag. scrcpy avoids all of that: it does not require root, it does not leave anything installed on the Android device, and it works over USB or TCP/IP for wireless use. It runs on Linux, Windows, and macOS. The README highlights design goals of lightness (it just shows the device screen), performance at 30 to 120 frames per second depending on the device, quality of 1920x1080 or above, low latency around 35 to 70 ms, fast startup at about a second to first frame, and being free and open source. Listed features include audio forwarding, recording, virtual displays, mirroring with the device screen turned off, copy-paste in both directions, configurable quality, camera mirroring, exposing the device camera as a webcam on Linux through V4L2, simulating a physical keyboard or mouse over HID, gamepad support, and an OTG mode that lets you use the computer to control the device without mirroring or USB debugging. Usage is via a command-line tool with many options, with example invocations in the README that pick the H.265 video codec, set max size and frame rate, record to MP4, expose a virtual display, or use the device camera as a webcam. You would use scrcpy to mirror an Android device for presentations, gaming with gamepads, screen recording, app testing, or simply working from a bigger keyboard. The Android device must be at least Android 5.0, and audio forwarding requires Android 11 or newer. The project is written in C and licensed under Apache License 2.0.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
How do I set up scrcpy to mirror my Android phone wirelessly over TCP/IP instead of USB?
Prompt 2
Show me how to record my Android screen to an MP4 file using scrcpy with H.265 codec.
Prompt 3
How do I use my Android phone's camera as a webcam on Linux with scrcpy?
Prompt 4
What command-line options does scrcpy have to control video quality, frame rate, and resolution?
Prompt 5
How do I use a gamepad to control my Android device through scrcpy?
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Generated 2026-05-18 · Model: sonnet-4-6 · Verify against the repo before relying on details.