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Use your Android phone as a PC microphone

Updated September 14, 2026 · 4 min read

The microphone in your Android phone is probably the best one you own. Flagship phones record in 24-bit — most USB mics around the $70 mark are stuck at 16 — and it certainly beats whatever is drilled into your laptop's bezel. The only problem: Windows has no idea your phone is a microphone.

Micstream closes that gap with a driver on the PC side. The Windows client installs a small audio driver that creates a real input device, and the phone app streams your microphone into it. To Windows, a microphone called "Micstream" is plugged in — every app from Zoom to OBS treats it like hardware. The audio stays 32-bit float at 48 kHz the whole way and goes directly from the phone to your PC; it never touches a server.

You need three things:

  • An Android phone running Android 8 or newer
  • A PC running Windows 10 or 11 (or Linux — see below)
  • A USB data cable, or both devices on the same Wi-Fi network

Setup

  1. 1

    Install the Windows client

    Download the installer and run it. It sets up the desktop client and the audio driver — the part that creates the "Micstream" input device. Your existing audio devices aren't touched; this only adds one.

  2. 2

    Install the Android app

    Get it on Google Play. No account, no sign-up.

  3. 3

    Connect over USB or Wi-Fi

    USB: plug the phone into the PC with a data cable and pick USB in the app. Android routes the connection through USB tethering, so the app asks you to switch it on once — the button takes you straight to the system setting. If the app warns that the cable looks like a charging cable, it is: try another one.

    Wi-Fi: with both devices on the same network, your PC shows up in the app within a few seconds. Tap it. There's no address to type and no pairing code.

    Either way, Android asks for microphone permission on the first connect — the app can't capture anything without it.

  4. 4

    Pick Micstream as the input

    Open the microphone settings of the app you're using and select Micstream. To make it the default for everything, open SettingsSystemSound in Windows and select it under Input.

Discord and OBS have their own device pickers that override the Windows default, so select Micstream there directly — there are short guides for Discord and OBS.

USB or Wi-Fi?

USB when latency matters: recording, streaming, anything where you monitor yourself. Wi-Fi when placement matters more than milliseconds — a room mic for a meeting, a phone propped up where no cable reaches. Wi-Fi latency tracks your network conditions, so if you hear dropouts, the fix is the cable.

Streaming in the background

Once connected you can switch apps or turn the screen off; the stream keeps running as a foreground service, and the persistent notification is where you stop it. A few phones throttle audio when the screen is off — if you hear glitches, turn on SettingsKeep Screen On in the app.

Troubleshooting

USB doesn't connect

Two usual suspects. The cable: many bundled cables carry power only — the app tells you when it can't see a data connection, so swap it. USB tethering: it has to be on for the duration; if it flips off after a reboot, turn it back on under SettingsNetwork & internetHotspot & tethering.

The app can't find your PC over Wi-Fi

Check the boring thing first: the phone has to be on the same network as the PC, not on mobile data. Then the two common culprits — guest networks often enable AP isolation, which stops devices from seeing each other, so switch both to your main network; and Windows Firewall may be blocking the client, so allow it on private networks when prompted. A USB cable bypasses all of this.

Micstream isn't in the input device list

The device is created by the driver, so if it's missing entirely, the driver install didn't finish — run the installer again. If the device exists but an app keeps using another mic, select Micstream in that app and restart it — many apps only scan for devices at startup.

Audio is choppy over Wi-Fi

That's the network, not the mic. Wi-Fi latency rises with distance, interference, and whatever else is using the connection. Move closer to the router, or plug in USB — it doesn't share bandwidth with anything.

Common questions

Is it free?

The free tier is ad-supported: watching a rewarded ad grants streaming time. A Pro subscription removes the ads and limits.

Does it work with a Mac or Linux PC?

Linux: yes — the client registers a PipeWire virtual microphone, no driver needed. See the Linux setup guide. macOS is in development.

What about an iPhone?

Also supported, over Wi-Fi — see the iPhone guide.

What's the actual audio quality?

32-bit floating point at 48 kHz through the whole pipeline, stereo on supported devices. Nothing is downsampled or compressed below that, so what the phone's hardware captures is what arrives in Windows.

Both downloads are free:

Download Windows Client Get Android App