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Turn your phone into a Windows microphone

Updated July 11, 2026 · 4 min read

The microphone in your 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 they certainly beat 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. The Windows client installs a small audio driver that creates a real input device, and the app streams your phone's audio into it. There's nothing to configure per app — as far as Windows is concerned, a microphone called "Micstream" is plugged in. The pipeline stays 32-bit float at 48 kHz from the phone to Windows, so nothing gets truncated or resampled along the way.

You need three things:

  • A PC running Windows 10 or 11
  • An Android phone — iOS is planned for summer 2026
  • A USB 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

    It's on Google Play. No account, no sign-up. Audio travels directly from the phone to your PC on the local network and never touches a server.

  3. 3

    Connect the phone

    Plug in a USB cable and connect from the app, or stay wireless: on Wi-Fi the app finds your PC automatically, as long as both devices are on the same network. 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. That's the whole integration — it's a normal input device, so everything from Zoom to OBS treats it like hardware.

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.

Set it as the default mic

If you want every app to use the phone without being asked:

  • Windows 11: open SettingsSystemSound and select Micstream under Input.
  • Windows 10: same place — pick Micstream in the "Choose your input device" dropdown.

The classic dialog still works on both: press Win + R, run mmsys.cpl, open the Recording tab, select Micstream, and click Set Default.

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.

Troubleshooting

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 (or set it as the Windows default) and restart the app — many apps only scan for devices at startup.

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.

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 an iPhone?

Not yet — the iOS app is in development, planned for summer 2026.

macOS or Linux?

No. Windows 10 and 11 only. If you need a desktop platform we don't cover, AudioRelay does — see the comparison.

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.

Can I use the phone while it's streaming?

Yes. The app runs in the background.

Both downloads are free:

Download Windows Client Get Android App