scrcpy/doc/build.md

Build scrcpy

Here are the instructions to build scrcpy (client and server).

If you just want to build and install the latest release, follow the simplified process described in doc/linux.md.

Branches

There are two main branches:

• master: contains the latest release. It is the home page of the project on GitHub.
• dev: the current development branch. Every commit present in dev will be in the next release.

If you want to contribute code, please base your commits on the latest dev branch.

Requirements

You need adb. It is available in the Android SDK platform tools, or packaged in your distribution (adb).

On Windows, download the platform-tools and extract the following files to a directory accessible from your PATH:

• adb.exe
• AdbWinApi.dll
• AdbWinUsbApi.dll

It is also available in scrcpy releases.

The client requires FFmpeg and LibSDL2. Just follow the instructions.

System-specific steps

Linux

Install the required packages from your package manager.

Debian/Ubuntu

# runtime dependencies
sudo apt install ffmpeg libsdl2-2.0-0 adb libusb-1.0-0

# client build dependencies
sudo apt install gcc git pkg-config meson ninja-build libsdl2-dev \
                 libavcodec-dev libavdevice-dev libavformat-dev libavutil-dev \
                 libswresample-dev libusb-1.0-0-dev

# server build dependencies
sudo apt install openjdk-17-jdk

On old versions (like Ubuntu 16.04), meson is too old. In that case, install it from pip3:

sudo apt install python3-pip
pip3 install meson

Fedora

# enable RPM fusion free
sudo dnf install https://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm

# client build dependencies
sudo dnf install SDL2-devel ffms2-devel libusb1-devel meson gcc make

# server build dependencies
sudo dnf install java-devel

Windows

Cross-compile from Linux

This is the preferred method (and the way the release is built).

From Debian, install mingw:

sudo apt install mingw-w64 mingw-w64-tools

You also need the JDK to build the server:

sudo apt install openjdk-17-jdk

Then generate the releases:

./release.sh

It will generate win32 and win64 releases into dist/.

In MSYS2

From Windows, you need MSYS2 to build the project. From an MSYS2 terminal, install the required packages:

# runtime dependencies
pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-SDL2 \
          mingw-w64-x86_64-ffmpeg \
          mingw-w64-x86_64-libusb

# client build dependencies
pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-make \
          mingw-w64-x86_64-gcc \
          mingw-w64-x86_64-pkg-config \
          mingw-w64-x86_64-meson

For a 32 bits version, replace x86_64 by i686:

# runtime dependencies
pacman -S mingw-w64-i686-SDL2 \
          mingw-w64-i686-ffmpeg \
          mingw-w64-i686-libusb

# client build dependencies
pacman -S mingw-w64-i686-make \
          mingw-w64-i686-gcc \
          mingw-w64-i686-pkg-config \
          mingw-w64-i686-meson

Java (>= 7) is not available in MSYS2, so if you plan to build the server, install it manually and make it available from the PATH:

export PATH="$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH"

Mac OS

Install the packages with Homebrew:

# runtime dependencies
brew install sdl2 ffmpeg libusb

# client build dependencies
brew install pkg-config meson

Additionally, if you want to build the server, install Java 17 from Caskroom, and make it available from the PATH:

brew tap homebrew/cask-versions
brew install adoptopenjdk/openjdk/adoptopenjdk17
export JAVA_HOME="$(/usr/libexec/java_home --version 1.17)"
export PATH="$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH"

Docker

See pierlon/scrcpy-docker.

Common steps

As a non-root user, clone the project:

git clone https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy
cd scrcpy

Build

You may want to build only the client: the server binary, which will be pushed to the Android device, does not depend on your system and architecture. In that case, use the prebuilt server (so you will not need Java or the Android SDK).

Option 1: Build everything from sources

Install the Android SDK (Android Studio), and set ANDROID_SDK_ROOT to its directory. For example:

# Linux
export ANDROID_SDK_ROOT=~/Android/Sdk
# Mac
export ANDROID_SDK_ROOT=~/Library/Android/sdk
# Windows
set ANDROID_SDK_ROOT=%LOCALAPPDATA%\Android\sdk

Then, build:

meson setup x --buildtype=release --strip -Db_lto=true
ninja -Cx  # DO NOT RUN AS ROOT

Note: ninja must be run as a non-root user (only ninja install must be run as root).

Option 2: Use prebuilt server

• scrcpy-server-v2.3.1
  _{SHA-256: f6814822fc308a7a532f253485c9038183c6296a6c5df470a9e383b4f8e7605b}

Download the prebuilt server somewhere, and specify its path during the Meson configuration:

meson setup x --buildtype=release --strip -Db_lto=true \
    -Dprebuilt_server=/path/to/scrcpy-server
ninja -Cx  # DO NOT RUN AS ROOT

The server only works with a matching client version (this server works with the master branch).

Run without installing:

./run x [options]

Install

After a successful build, you can install scrcpy on the system:

sudo ninja -Cx install    # without sudo on Windows

This installs several files:

• /usr/local/bin/scrcpy (main app)
• /usr/local/share/scrcpy/scrcpy-server (server to push to the device)
• /usr/local/share/man/man1/scrcpy.1 (manpage)
• /usr/local/share/icons/hicolor/256x256/apps/icon.png (app icon)
• /usr/local/share/zsh/site-functions/_scrcpy (zsh completion)
• /usr/local/share/bash-completion/completions/scrcpy (bash completion)

You can then run scrcpy.

Uninstall

sudo ninja -Cx uninstall  # without sudo on Windows