How to Mirror Your iPhone to a Windows PC

Windows still can't receive AirPlay connections on its own. Try to open Screen Mirroring on an iPhone in a room full of PCs. The list comes back empty because Microsoft never built an AirPlay receiver into Windows and Apple never shipped one. The fix is software on the PC side. All you have to do is install a receiver app if you want your computer to show up in that list like an Apple TV would. Here's the whole process with Reflector 4. It takes less than a minute.

What you need

• An iPhone or iPad on a recent version of iOS or iPadOS (Reflector supports current releases, including iOS 26)
• A PC running Windows 10 or newer
• Both devices on the same Wi-Fi network
• Reflector 4 on the PC (free trial here)

Nothing gets installed on the phone. The sending side is the AirPlay feature already built into iOS, so there's nothing extra to install or sign in to.

Mirror your iPhone in four steps

1. Download and install Reflector 4 on your PC, then launch it. It waits in the background as an AirPlay receiver.
2. On your iPhone, swipe down from the top-right corner to open Control Center.
3. Tap Screen Mirroring. Your PC appears in the list under its computer name.
4. Tap your PC. If prompted, enter the code Reflector shows on the PC screen. Your iPhone appears on the monitor a moment later.

Everything on the phone now shows on the PC at up to 60 frames per second. Apps, games, photos, video, all of it live.

If you see the code we mentioned in step 4, that's a special security feature. Reflector can require an on-screen AirPlay code before any device connects, so a person has to physically see your monitor to mirror to it. The neighbor in the next apartment and the office prankster won't be able to put their phone on your Windows PC screen. You can also set Reflector to ask you before any device appears, every single time.

When your PC doesn't show up

Screen Mirroring only finds receivers on the same network, and that's where nearly every failed connection starts. Three things to check:

• The iPhone and PC are on the same Wi-Fi network. A phone on the guest network and a PC on the main one will never see each other.
• Windows Firewall isn't blocking Reflector. Allow it through when Windows asks the first time.
• The network allows device discovery. Hotel, office and school networks often split devices into separate subnets or block the multicast traffic AirPlay uses to announce itself. That's a network policy issue. Your IT/network team can make the required changes.

What about the free apps?

There are free AirPlay receivers for Windows, and for casual one-off use some of them do an ok job. The trade-offs eventually show up. Free tools tend to watermark the screen, cap session length or lag behind iOS releases. AirPlay isn't a published standard. Apple changes how it behaves with major iOS updates, and a receiver that isn't maintained against those changes stops working, usually in September when your iPhone updates itself overnight.

Keeping pace with iOS is most of the job of building an AirPlay receiver, and it's where the engineering time behind Reflector goes. Compatibility work happens against new iOS versions before they reach the public.

Mirroring is just the front door

Once the phone is on the PC screen, Reflector does a few things the throwaway tools don't:

• Record it. Capture the mirrored screen at up to 60 fps, add voiceover from your mic and wrap the video in a device frame. App demos and how-to videos come out polished with no extra software.
• Add more devices. Reflector accepts any number of simultaneous connections and lays the screens out automatically. Having two phones appear side by side is genuinely useful more often than you'd expect.
• Receive everything else. Reflector also accepts Google Cast and Miracast, so the same PC catches an Android phone, a Chromebook or another Windows machine. You just need Reflector instead of a drawer full of dongles.

Try it before you buy it

The full version of Reflector 4 is free to try. Download the trial and install it on your PC. Your iPhone will be mirrored to your Windows PC in no time.