How to Stop Someone from Mirroring Your Phone

Who here has their entire life stored on their mobile phone? Look around you — hands raised everywhere. 

With phones taking up such a central part of our lives, cell phone surveillance is becoming a very serious threat. A simple phone mirroring “trick” can reveal so much about you and your life to the wrong people.

To avoid falling into this situation, we’ll show you everything you should know about how to stop someone from mirroring your phone.

First things first, let’s detail what this cell phone spying method is and talk about some ways people might try to mirror your phone. Later on, we’ll also discuss what you can do to rid your phone of this threat.

What Is Mirroring a Mobile Device?

Mirroring a phone is the process of replicating or mirroring a mobile device’s entire display and functionality onto another one, such as a computer, tablet, or smart TV. 

Phone mirroring lets you see and control your phone screen and content on a larger one in real-time. And that’s proving to be more and more helpful as phones become more versatile in the following five areas:

1. Screen Sharing and Presentations 

Mirroring enables you to share your phone screen with others during presentations, meetings, or demonstrations. It allows for a more engaging and interactive experience, as participants can view the content simultaneously on a larger display.

This also helps with collaboration on projects like document editing or brainstorming. 

2. Media Streaming

Mirroring is commonly used for streaming media content, like videos, photos, or music.

With phone mirroring, you can watch your favorite movies on your TV, even if you don’t have a streaming app installed on it.

You can also show your family the slideshow you made of your vacation pictures, while blasting your favorite music — just by mirroring your phone to your TV. 

3. Gaming 

If you’re a gamer, screen mirroring will give a more immersive feel to your favorite games.

It provides a wider field of view and better control, especially for games that require precise touch or motion controls.

4. Remote Assistance and Support 

Mirroring facilitates remote assistance and support by allowing technicians or experts to view and control your device remotely. They can troubleshoot issues, provide guidance, or demonstrate real-time steps.

The mirroring process typically involves using specialized software or applications that establish a wireless or wired connection between the mobile device and the receiving device. Common methods include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or physical cables like HDMI or USB.

When Phone Mirroring Becomes a Threat

Honestly, phone mirroring doesn’t sound like that big of a deal, so what’s all the fuss?

Well, if you take a closer look at the last item on the list above, you might see where the problem hides.

Someone could mirror your iOS or Android device, just like they do for remote assistance, but maliciously.

Through phone mirroring, someone can steal your private information, like details of your phone calls, GPS location, text messages, social media, bank accounts, and pretty much everything on your device.

It worsens when you remember this isn’t too difficult to achieve. App stores are filled with many spying apps and spying software specialized for cell phone surveillance. But can this happen to you? Let’s find out.

Can Someone Mirror Your Phone Without You Knowing?

Long story short, yes. 

Anyone can simply install a spy app on your mobile phone and they’d be all set. These apps can disguise themselves as harmless and work on Android or iOS devices.

Malicious hackers can even install them remotely in some cases.  

If you’re on iOS, anyone with your Apple ID can install a spy app on your device to steal your data — and you wouldn’t even have a clue.

Android users aren’t safe either.

Although Android devices generally don’t allow app installation without physical access to the device, it’s still not impossible for someone to install a spy app without you knowing.

If you just leave your Android phone unattended for a couple of minutes, someone can quickly come in and install apps to spy on you. 

So we’ve seen that your phone could be mirrored regardless of which operating system you use.

Now, it’s time to find out how you can tell if your cell phone is mirrored.

How Can You Tell Your Phone Is Screen Mirroring?

Your phone will show you a lot of subtle signs to tell you it’s being mirrored. But if you don’t know what to look for, they’ll probably go unnoticed. 

We’ll show you 4 telltale signs that might indicate someone is spying on your phone. But keep in mind, your mobile phone doesn’t need to show all the signs below to be potentially mirrored. So read carefully and check your device.

1. Battery Behavior

Spying apps installed on your phone will constantly be running in the background. This will decrease your battery life by a lot. For example, you might notice your phone overheating or draining the battery pretty quickly. 

How to Check for Battery Issues on Your Phone

On Android

1. Go to Settings
2. Open Battery and device care
3. Click Battery
4. Check your Usage since last full charge report

Checking which apps used the most battery since your last charge can help you spot any unusual activity. If you notice a strange app draining a lot of your battery, that might be a spying app. 

On iOS

1. Open the Settings app
2. Scroll down and tap on Battery
3. Check your Usage in the last 24 hours

Here, you’ll find a breakdown of your battery usage. The “Battery Usage” section shows the percentage of battery used by each app over the last 24 hours or the last ten days.

2. App Functioning

Cell phone surveillance apps can interfere with the functioning of other apps. So you might notice your apps and your phone becoming incredibly slow and laggy and crashing more often than before.

You might also start hearing strange background noise as you use your phone.

How to Check for Application Problems

Here’s how you can check whether or not you recognize the installed apps on your phone.

On Android

1. Unlock your Android device and go to the home screen
2. Look for the Apps or App Drawer icon
3. Tap on the Apps or App Drawer icon
4. Scroll up or down to browse through the apps.
5. Tap on an app to access additional options like app info

On iOS

1. Unlock your iPhone device and go to the home screen
2. Look for the Apps icon
3. Tap on the Apps icon
4. Scroll up or down to browse through the apps
5. Tap on an app to access additional options like app info

3. System Behavior

Phone spying apps can also affect your phone’s overall performance. So your phone might start resetting randomly on its own, or the screen might stop responding.

Your storage capacity might start filling up much faster because of the app’s files. 

You’ll also notice your CPU running at very high levels, even if you aren’t using any resource-intensive apps — that could be the spy software.

Spying apps can even alter your system/privacy settings, so if you notice any of your phone’s presets changing randomly, act fast.

How to Identify Issues with Your Phone System

In order to identify potential threats on your phone, you should access your system configuration and make sure everything looks according to the original setup, unless you have made changes by yourself.

Here’s how you do check it on both operating systems.

On Android

1. Tap on the Settings app in your home screen
2. Scroll down and select System or About Phone
3. Tap on System or About Phone
4. Tap on Software Information
5. Explore system settings for any inconsistencies or unknown apps

On iOS

1. Open the Settings app
2. Scroll down and tap on General
3. Explore the settings like System Updates & Backups

4. Data Usage

Phone spy software running in the background might constantly be sending and receiving files. This means your monthly data usage will skyrocket for no apparent reason. Your phone bill might also start increasing, which could indicate your phone is being mirrored. 

How to Identify Data Usage Anomalies

If you suspect any recent strange data usage on your phone, here is what you need to do to identify and understand them.

On Android 

1. Open the Settings app
2. Tap on Network & Internet or Connections
3. Scroll down to see app Data Usage
4. Check the Data usage graph

You can either check every single app or just rank them by usage so you may check those consuming more than expected or even those you don’t remember having on your phone.

On iOS

1. Open the Settings app
2. Tap on Cellular & Mobile Data 
3. Tap on Data usage or Data usage control

You can also set data usage limits: iOS offers a feature called Data Saver or Low Data Mode that helps you restrict data usage on your device.

Trust Your Instincts

If you consistently feel that something isn’t right with your phone, and you’re experiencing strange occurrences even if they’re not from the list above, investigate further for the possibility of a spying app. 

If you’re in the US and you feel your phone is being monitored, you should stop using your phone right away and call the Stalking Resource Center at the National Center for Victims of Crime at 855-4-VICTIM (855-484-2846). 

If you’re in the U.K., call Paladin at 020 3866 4107.

Can You Stop Someone Mirroring Your Phone?

The short answer is yes, but it might be easier said than done — especially when you’re dealing with one of the many spy apps out there.

App stores offer a wide variety of useful phone mirroring apps, but many of them can be spying apps. These apps can give unauthorized individuals complete control over your phone: they can get remote access to your personal data, messages, location with Google Maps, and even camera. 

Some of the most famous ones are:

• mSpy
• FlexiSpy
• Spyera
• Hoverwatch
• Spyzie

And the list goes on and on. But the good news is, these apps aren’t flawless, so you can get rid of them if you find them on your phone! Here’s a little guide on how to do that on your Android or iOS.

How Do You Stop Someone From Screen Mirroring Your iPhone?

Apple has very robust security layers that prevent most malicious people (or just nosy friends and family) from installing spyware on your phone from outside the official App Store. 

Here’s how you can find malicious apps on your iOS phone:

1. Go to the App Store
2. Search for Apps with words like “spy” in the title
3. Check if these apps are installed on your phone (installed apps have a blue Open button next to them)

Once you find the apps, you can simply find them on your home screen, long-press them, and click Uninstall. Bye bye spy!

But if you have a jailbroken iPhone, it becomes much easier to install apps from external sources, including spying apps. You might not be able to find these apps in your App Store, so it becomes harder to spot and remove them.

But here are three steps that can help you stop cell phone spying apps. 

1. Change your iCloud password. Changing your Apple iCloud password can stop surveillance software from updating new information to their control panel
2. Stop automatic backups. Without updates and backups, spying software can’t collect new information from your iPhone.
3. Keep your iPhone updated. Apple always finds and patches threats in its iOS updates, so always install the newest software updates.
   1. Go to Settings
   2. Tap General
   3. Find the Software Update tab

Extra Security Tip

If your iPhone is jailbroken, you can use a Windows PC or Mac to update the operating system via iTunes (or via Finder on macOS Catalina or higher).

This should remove any jailbreak and disable any pre-installed apps requiring a jailbroken device.

How Do You Stop Someone From Screen Mirroring Your Android Mobile Phone?

First things first, identify what apps you have installed on your phone: 

1. Go to Settings
2. Look for Apps & Notifications
3. Click on See all apps (names can vary according to your Android’s version) and you’ll find a list of pre-installed apps
4. Look for apps you don’t recognize in this list. any application you don’t recognize the name. Note these spying apps can disguise their app icon and name, so you want to check one by one to ensure they’re safe
5. Click on Delete to remove apps you don’t recognize or suspicious-looking apps 

But Google also has another security feature that will give you more peace of mind — Google Play Protect. 

Play Protect won’t detect spy apps, but it might show you software that’s trying to get permissions to collect and share private data. This might alert you of spying apps trying to run on your phone. Simply follow the steps below to activate Google Play Protect: 

1. Access your Google Play app
2. Tap on your profile icon at the top right
3. Go to Play Protect
4. Tap  Scan

If you still feel like the problem persists, you might have to resort to more extreme possibilities.

Additional Methods to Stop Someone from Mirroring Your Phone

As a final resort, you can decide to take your phone to a certified technician. They can then check your device with all the expertise and resources they have available.

Many technology stores in the US offer this service.

You can also choose to do a factory reset on your device by yourself. 

But wait!

A factory reset will erase every single third-party app from your phone (including spying and mirroring apps), together with pictures, videos, and other files on your phone.

So we recommend you make a backup of everything before resetting. This way you won’t lose any of your valuable information and memories stored on your phone. 

How to Reset Android Phone

1. Tap Settings
2. Tap System or General Management
3. Choose Reset
4. Find Erase all data or Factory Reset
5. Tap Reset Phone

How to Reset iPhone

1. Tap Settings
2. Go to General
3. Find the Reset option
4. Click Reset All Settings (On iOS 16, this is called Transfer or Reset iPhone)
5. Type in your device password
6. Tap Reset All Settings

Now that you and your phone are safe, you need to make sure it stays this way. Let’s talk about prevention methods.

How to Prevent Your Phone from Being Mirrored

We can’t guarantee no one will ever mirror your phone or spy on it. But you can still follow some easy cybersecurity best practices to make the job much harder for someone trying to snoop.

• Avoid connecting to Public Networks
• Use a trustworthy Virtual Private Network (VPN)
• Add biometric features to access your phone
• Use complex passwords with at least six characters mixing numbers, letters, and other symbols
• Enable two factor authentication if available
• Install an antivirus software
• Don’t leave your Google chrome account logged in
• Install apps that enhance your phone’s security
• Don’t leave your phone unattended
• Don’t click on unknown links, images, or other files

Final Thoughts: Protect Yourself Against Prying Eyes

Safeguarding your phone against unauthorized mirroring is crucial to protect your privacy and personal data. Especially in this day and age, where phones are such a pivotal aspect of our lives. 

So follow the preventive measures we outlined in this article — keep your software up-to-date, avoid suspicious app downloads, and stay safe on public Wi-Fi.

These simple steps can significantly reduce the risk of someone mirroring your phone without your consent.

And in all cases, always check for signs of suspicious activity, such as unusual battery drain or unexpected data usage.

Doing so can help you detect any mirroring or spying attempts before they get out of hand. 

Remember, prioritizing your mobile security and adopting best practices can go a long way in ensuring the privacy and integrity of your personal information on your smartphone.