Control your Android smartphone from your desktop
Remote Control
© Lead Image © victor kuznetsov, 123RF.com
With guiscrcpy graphical user interface and the scrcpy command-line tool, you can control your smartphone from the comfort of your Linux desktop and even record what you're doing onscreen.
Smartphones and the Linux desktop complement each other quite well thanks to cloud services. If you're not afraid of Google services or providers like Dropbox, WhatsApp, and the like, you never again have to connect your mobile phone to your computer to synchronize data or copy photos and videos. Even messengers like WhatsApp or Google's Messages now offer a web interface so that your mobile phone can stay in your pocket.
However, there are also situations in which you might want to be able to use your PC to operate your mobile phone. Ideally, you would want to transfer the content of the mobile phone display to the PC desktop. This is exactly what the duo of the scrcpy command-line program and the guiscrcpy graphical user interface (GUI) offers. These open source programs available for Linux, macOS X, and Windows even let you record what is happening on the mobile phone display.
Screen Copy
scrcpy comes from the Genymobile [1] treasure trove. Among other things, Genymobile specializes in virtualizing Android, which means that developers can test their applications on a variety of smartphones or tablets without having to own the devices themselves. As a command-line tool, Genymotion provides the scrcpy [2] program's source code on GitHub for download under the very liberal Apache license.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Linux Kernel 6.14 Released
The latest Linux kernel has arrived with extra Rust support and more.
-
EndeavorOS Mercury Neo Available
A new release from the EndeavorOS team ships with Plasma 6.3 and other goodies.
-
Fedora 42 Beta Has Arrived
The Fedora Project has announced the availability of the first beta release for version 42 of the open-source distribution.
-
Dash to Panel Maintainer Quits
Charles Gagnon has stepped away as maintainer of the popular Dash to Panel Gnome extension.
-
CIQ Releases Security-Hardened Version of Rocky Linux
If you're looking for an enterprise-grade Linux distribution that is hardened for business use, there's a new version of Rocky Linux that's sure to make you and your company happy.
-
Gnome’s Dash to Panel Extension Gets a Massive Update
If you're a fan of the Gnome Dash to Panel extension, you'll be thrilled to hear that a new version has been released with a dock mode.
-
Blender App Makes it to the Big Screen
The animated film "Flow" won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature at the 97th Academy Awards held on March 2, 2025 and Blender was a part of it.
-
Linux Mint Retools the Cinnamon App Launcher
The developers of Linux Mint are working on an improved Cinnamon App Launcher with a better, more accessible UI.
-
New Linux Tool for Security Issues
Seal Security is launching a new solution to automate fixing Linux vulnerabilities.
-
Ubuntu 25.04 Coming Soon
Ubuntu 25.04 (Plucky Puffin) has been given an April release date with many notable updates.