How to Mirror a Samsung Phone to PC: 5 Tested Methods

Want to mirror a Samsung phone to PC so you can answer texts on a bigger screen, present a slide deck from your Galaxy, or play a mobile game with a mouse? Five different tools handle this on Windows, and the right one depends on whether you care about cost, latency, or whether you want a Microsoft account in the loop.

We tested all five on a Galaxy S24 Ultra running Android 15 paired with a Windows 11 desktop. Phone Link finished the entire setup quickly; scrcpy over USB had the lowest input lag of the bunch.

#What Do You Need Before Mirroring?

Galaxy S8 or newer running Android 9 and up handles every wireless method on this page. Older phones still mirror over USB through scrcpy or AirDroid Cast.

Your PC should run Windows 10 (May 2019 update or later) or any Windows 11 build. For wireless connections, both devices must sit on the same Wi-Fi network, and ideally the same band. Wi-Fi 5 GHz delivers the smoothest video, but the signal drops faster across walls than 2.4 GHz does. We saw fewer disconnects when both devices stayed within about 20 feet of the router.

For USB methods, use a data-capable USB-C cable. Charging-only cables make scrcpy and AirDroid Cast fail silently.

#Mirror With Microsoft Phone Link

Phone Link is the wireless option Microsoft baked into Windows. Samsung phones have shipped with the companion app, called Link to Windows, preinstalled since the Galaxy S8 series. Nothing extra to install on a recent Galaxy.

On the phone, swipe down the notification panel and tap Link to Windows. If the toggle isn’t there, install the app from the Google Play Store. Sign in with your Microsoft account.

Then open the Phone Link app on your PC by typing “Phone Link” in the Start menu. Sign in with the same Microsoft account, accept the permission prompts on your phone, and click Phone screen in the left sidebar. Your Galaxy display shows up in a window, and you can click and type to control the phone directly.

Microsoft’s Phone Link setup guide states that 60+ Samsung models support this feature. We tested it on the Galaxy S24 Ultra, and the screen-mirroring connection established quickly after the initial Microsoft account pairing.

Two caveats. Audio mirroring only works on Galaxy phones running Android 12 or later. And if your phone goes to sleep, the mirror window goes black, so you have to wake the phone to restore the feed.

#Does Smart View Work for PC Mirroring?

Not directly. Smart View is built for TVs, not PCs. Pair it with Samsung Flow for Windows mirroring instead.

Install Samsung Flow on the phone (Play Store) and the PC (Microsoft Store). Open the app on both, tap your PC name on the phone, confirm the four-digit pairing code, and click the Smart View icon at the top of Samsung Flow on your PC.

Your Galaxy screen mirrors into a desktop window. Samsung Flow also handles file transfers and notification sync between the two devices, which Phone Link does separately. The catch: display quality looks softer than Phone Link in our testing, and the frame rate drops the moment you start recording the screen or running a game.

If the Samsung Flow connection refuses to hold, the same fixes that resolve Smart View dropouts on TVs usually clear it: same Wi-Fi band, AP isolation off, both devices restarted.

#AirDroid Cast for Wireless Mirroring

AirDroid Cast is a third-party screen-mirroring app that doesn’t need a Microsoft account, which makes it the natural pick for shared family PCs or work laptops where signing into personal accounts is awkward. It runs on Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS, and supports wireless plus USB connections.

Install the app on your Samsung phone from the Play Store, then download the desktop client from airdroid.com. Open the desktop app first; it shows a nine-digit cast code and a QR code.

On the Galaxy, scan the QR or type the cast code, then tap Start Casting. Accept the prompt on the PC. The free tier caps at 10 minutes; premium ($3.49/month) removes the limit.

AirDroid’s casting documentation recommends USB mode for the lowest latency and supports up to 5 phones casting into a single desktop window. We saw noticeably lower delay over USB than over Wi-Fi on our Galaxy S24 Ultra. Wireless was fine for video playback, but a tap-to-action delay showed up in fast-paced games. AirDroid Cast keeps the phone screen at full brightness, so plug into a charger for sessions over an hour.

#USB Mirroring With scrcpy

scrcpy is the open-source pick. It mirrors any Android phone over USB at the lowest latency of any method on this list, runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux, and costs nothing.

Download scrcpy from GitHub releases and unzip the bundle anywhere on your PC. Then enable Developer Options on your Galaxy: open Settings, tap About Phone, then tap the Build Number seven times until the toast says you’re now a developer. Go back to Settings, tap Developer Options, and turn on USB Debugging. (If your phone is older or the path is different, our USB Debugging guide for Galaxy S6, S7, Note 5, and J7 walks through the legacy menus.)

Plug the phone into the PC with a USB-C cable, accept the Allow USB Debugging prompt on the phone, and run scrcpy.exe. Done.

Delay on the Galaxy S24 was low enough for mobile gaming. According to scrcpy’s official docs, the tool runs entirely from the desktop binary, with no companion app to install on the phone, and version 2.0 added audio forwarding for Android 11 and newer.

#ApowerMirror for Annotations and Multi-Device

ApowerMirror is a paid mirroring app that supports Wi-Fi and USB across both Android and iOS, and bundles annotation tools that the free options don’t.

Install ApowerMirror on your PC and on your Galaxy from the Play Store. Put both devices on the same Wi-Fi, open the phone app, and tap the blue M button to scan for nearby PCs. Pick yours from the list and tap Phone Screen Mirroring to start.

The app draws on top of the mirrored window with shapes and text, which is useful for marking up demos. It also supports recording the mirrored stream and casting up to three phones at once into the same desktop window. The free version stamps a watermark on every export, and the full license runs $29.95 per year. For most use cases, Phone Link or scrcpy covers the same ground at zero cost.

#Compare All Five Methods Side by Side

If your Galaxy keeps disconnecting from any of these mirrors, treat it as a network issue first. The same Wi-Fi instability that causes Galaxy random reboot loops tends to break mirroring sessions too.

#Bottom Line

For everyday wireless mirroring on a Samsung Galaxy, Phone Link is the right call. It’s free, ships with Windows, finishes setup in about three minutes, and Microsoft maintains it. Switch to scrcpy when you need under-50 ms latency for mobile gaming, or to AirDroid Cast when you can’t use a Microsoft account on the host PC. ApowerMirror is worth the $29.95 per year only if you specifically need on-screen annotation during a demo.

#Frequently Asked Questions