Sooner or later, every Android device user wants a safe and free way to control them from the Windows desktop. Many apps promise this feature but hide it behind a premium profile, install bloatware on the phone, or have other restrictions. Scrcpy breaks all that by offering an open source platform to control your Android device without installing anything on it, without hacks, and without paying a cent.

Many Android device manufacturers have integrated proprietary resources into their products to easily connect them to the Windows desktop, or why not, turn them into computers. The underlying problem is that Android still owes us an official and universal solution for this, a true remote control that enables full access to the phone or tablet, without restrictions or compromises. Knowing Google, that may never exist as we expect (Android feels increasingly locked down), but the open source world has something quite close in the form of Scrcpy.

Scrcpy: How to control your Android device from the desktop
How to control your Android device from the desktop

Control your Android device with Scrcpy

Scrcpy: How to control your Android device from the desktop
Yes, you can use Scrcpy in landscape mode
  • The easiest way to start the connection between Scrcpy, the Android device and Windows is using a USB cable. In fact, this physical link will be necessary to activate the process even if you decide to go wireless later.
  • You also must enable USB debugging mode. That in turn requires enabling the developer/programming menu on the device. The exact steps may vary between devices and Android versions, but a little Google-fu is more than enough.
  • Download the latest version of Scrcpy, and extract its contents to a temporary folder. Inside you'll find a shortcut called "Open a Terminal Here". Double-click that shortcut, and a Windows console will open.
  • Connect the Android device with the USB cable to the computer, and authorize the debugging request. Then, run the scrcpy command in the console. If all goes well, the adb module that accompanies the program will detect the device, and its screen will open in a new window.
Scrcpy: How to control your Android device from the desktop
Some resolution errors during execution, but nothing serious
Scrcpy: How to control your Android device from the desktop
The physical keyboard repeats letters when we type accents (for example, ó appears as oó), but apart from that, it works very well

That's it! The rest of the advanced commands and instructions for wireless connection are available on the GitHub profile with a very good Spanish translation. Personally, I prefer the USB link to guarantee minimal latency (ranging from 35 to 70 milliseconds) and reduce quality/velocity loss... which of course happens anyway.

Scrcpy: How to control your Android device from the desktop
Exploring the gallery, no problems
Scrcpy: How to control your Android device from the desktop
Solid video playback... but no audio forwarding (requires secondary module and Android 10 at minimum)

Scrcpy supports mouse and keyboard, installing APKs via Drag and Drop, Android-as-Webcam (only Linux), screen rotation and recording, and video playback on the device, but no audio (requires the parallel module sndcpy and Android 10 at minimum). Scrcpy needs to work in a graphical interface because its current edition is far from intuitive, but it worked very well in our tests and we definitely recommend it.

Official site and download: Click here