scrcpy/doc/control.md

Control

Read-only

To disable controls (everything which can interact with the device: input keys, mouse events, drag&drop files):

scrcpy --no-control
scrcpy -n   # short version

Text injection preference

Two kinds of events are generated when typing text:

• key events, signaling that a key is pressed or released;
• text events, signaling that a text has been entered.

By default, letters are injected using key events, so that the keyboard behaves as expected in games (typically for WASD keys).

But this may cause issues. If you encounter such a problem, you can avoid it by:

scrcpy --prefer-text

(but this will break keyboard behavior in games)

On the contrary, you could force to always inject raw key events:

scrcpy --raw-key-events

These options have no effect on HID keyboard (all key events are sent as scancodes in this mode).

Copy-paste

Any time the Android clipboard changes, it is automatically synchronized to the computer clipboard.

Any Ctrl shortcut is forwarded to the device. In particular:

• Ctrl+c typically copies
• Ctrl+x typically cuts
• Ctrl+v typically pastes (after computer-to-device clipboard synchronization)

This typically works as you expect.

The actual behavior depends on the active application though. For example, Termux sends SIGINT on Ctrl+c instead, and K-9 Mail composes a new message.

To copy, cut and paste in such cases (but only supported on Android >= 7):

• MOD+c injects COPY
• MOD+x injects CUT
• MOD+v injects PASTE (after computer-to-device clipboard synchronization)

In addition, MOD+Shift+v injects the computer clipboard text as a sequence of key events. This is useful when the component does not accept text pasting (for example in Termux), but it can break non-ASCII content.

WARNING: Pasting the computer clipboard to the device (either via Ctrl+v or MOD+v) copies the content into the Android clipboard. As a consequence, any Android application could read its content. You should avoid pasting sensitive content (like passwords) that way.

Some Android devices do not behave as expected when setting the device clipboard programmatically. An option --legacy-paste is provided to change the behavior of Ctrl+v and MOD+v so that they also inject the computer clipboard text as a sequence of key events (the same way as MOD+Shift+v).

To disable automatic clipboard synchronization, use --no-clipboard-autosync.

Pinch-to-zoom, rotate and tilt simulation

To simulate "pinch-to-zoom": Ctrl+click-and-move.

More precisely, hold down Ctrl while pressing the left-click button. Until the left-click button is released, all mouse movements scale and rotate the content (if supported by the app) relative to the center of the screen.

To simulate a tilt gesture: Shift+click-and-move-up-or-down.

Technically, scrcpy generates additional touch events from a "virtual finger" at a location inverted through the center of the screen. When pressing Ctrl the x and y coordinates are inverted. Using Shift only inverts x.

Key repeat

By default, holding a key down generates repeated key events. This can cause performance problems in some games, where these events are useless anyway.

To avoid forwarding repeated key events:

scrcpy --no-key-repeat

This option has no effect on HID keyboard (key repeat is handled by Android directly in this mode).

Right-click and middle-click

By default, right-click triggers BACK (or POWER on) and middle-click triggers HOME. To disable these shortcuts and forward the clicks to the device instead:

scrcpy --forward-all-clicks

File drop

Install APK

To install an APK, drag & drop an APK file (ending with .apk) to the scrcpy window.

There is no visual feedback, a log is printed to the console.

Push file to device

To push a file to /sdcard/Download/ on the device, drag & drop a (non-APK) file to the scrcpy window.

There is no visual feedback, a log is printed to the console.

The target directory can be changed on start:

scrcpy --push-target=/sdcard/Movies/

Physical keyboard and mouse simulation

See the dedicated HID/OTG page.