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Screen mirroring is laggy or choppy: how to make it smooth

Mirroring sends live video across your network many times a second, so anything that slows the network shows up at once as stutter, blocks or delay. The fixes are simple, and the first two solve most cases.

Download for Windows — Free

Windows 10 and 11 · 64‑bit

Step by step

  1. Connect the PC to the router with a cable

    This is the biggest single improvement. With the PC on Ethernet, only the phone's half of the journey is wireless.

  2. Move closer to the router, and use the 5 GHz band

    Walls and distance cut Wi-Fi speed sharply. If your router has separate 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks, put the iPhone, and the PC if it is wireless, on the 5 GHz one.

  3. Pause heavy use of the network

    Large downloads, cloud backups and video streaming on other devices compete with the mirrored picture.

  4. Turn off any VPN

    A VPN on the phone or the PC can send local traffic the long way round, or block it.

  5. Check Compatibility mode

    If Compatibility mode is on in Mirlow's settings and you do not need it, turn it off, so the graphics card does the decoding. If the picture freezes with it off, turn it on.

  6. Give the PC room to work

    On a laptop, plug in the charger and leave battery saver off. Close programs that keep the processor or the graphics card busy.

A little delay is normal

The phone has to capture, compress and send each frame, and the PC has to decode and show it. On a good network the delay is small enough for browsing, photos, video and presentations. Games that depend on split-second timing are better played looking at the phone.

Blocks and smearing mean lost data

When the picture breaks into squares for a moment and then recovers, some of the video did not arrive in time. That points at the Wi-Fi signal rather than at the PC, so the first two steps are the ones to try.

Common questions

Does a faster internet connection help?

No. Mirroring never leaves your home network, so your internet speed does not matter. What matters is the Wi-Fi between the phone, the router and the PC.

Is a mesh network or a Wi-Fi extender a problem?

It can be, when the phone and the PC are connected to different units and the link between those units is weak. Try with both devices near the main router.

The sound and the picture are out of step. What can I do?

Stop mirroring and start it again, so that they line up afresh. If they keep drifting apart, the network is dropping data, so go through the steps above.

Does the picture quality depend on my monitor?

Mirlow asks the iPhone for a picture sized to your screen, and the iPhone decides what it sends. A sharper picture also needs more of the network, which is one more reason to prefer a cable for the PC.

Try it on your own PC

Mirlow is free and open source, and needs no account.

Download for Windows — Free

Windows 10 and 11 · 64‑bit

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