Scrcpy Can Now Mirror Android Screens On Desktops With The Display Off

There is no shortage of utilities and services that let users control their smartphones from their PCs. Even Microsoft is getting in on the game with the Your Phone app which is slowly improving but only for a limited number Android devices. If, on the other hand, you want a phone and OS-agnostic, "lag free", open source solution, there's always scrcpy. Now this little-known but powerful utility has gotten an important feature that lets it work even when the phones screen is turned off, sort of.

What makes scrcpy (short for "screen copy") special is that it requires very little to make it work. The Android phone doesn't need to be rooted and only needs to have ADB debugging enabled. The desktop app works on Windows, macOS, and Linux and promises nearly lag-free connection via USB. You can also do wireless but the setup can be a bit more involved.

scrcpy has been around for nearly two years now but its latest version 1.9 release is quite a big one, adding the ability to turn the screen off. It's not really turning it off, though, and more like keeping it blank. Presumably it still saves your phone some battery in the process.

That's not the only big new feature though. scrcpy can now also copy clipboard contents between phone and computer, for example. It also makes several fixes and upgrades the libraries it uses behind the scenes to make its screen mirroring even possible.

Granted, it's not an all-on-one syncing solution if you're looking for easy ways to share files between phone and computer. But if you're looking for a powerful, hassle-free, and lag-free screen mirroring solution, it might be your best bet, especially considering how it supports nearly all Android phones and desktop platforms.