How to Mirror iPad on Mac, like iPhone Mirroring

Ever wanted to use iPad Mirroring on your Mac, like the iPhone Mirroring app? iPhone Mirroring is one of the most handy features introduced to modern MacOS versions, allowing you to seamlessly mirror and use your iPhone screen directly from your Mac with ease. It’s so useful that many Mac users have wondered if iPhone Mirroring can be used for iPad too, and why there isn’t also an iPad Mirroring app or feature.

Perhaps you’re an iPad user who has even tried to change the mirrored iPhone from an iPhone to an iPad, since you can easily change mirroring to other iPhone devices that are yours and nearby. If so, you’ll notice you can not select an iPad (currently anyway), you can only select other iPhones.

This doesn’t mean there’s no way to mirror an iPad to the Mac though, and in fact there are a few ways you can do this or achieve similar effects.

Option 1: use QuickTime for iPad Mirroring on Mac

1. Connect the iPad to the Mac with a USB-C cable
2. Open the QuickTime Player app on your Mac from /Applications or with Spotlight
3. Go to File menu choose “New Movie Recording”
4. Next to the Record button there’s a tiny arrow pointing down, click to access a dropdown menu where you can choose your iPad as the device input for the movie recording



5. Once selected, the iPad will appear mirrored on the Mac screen

You can interact with the mirrored iPad on the iPad itself, but note the mouse cursor on the Mac will not be actively usable on the display in this setting.

Whether or not you record a video in iPad Mirroring mode like this is up to you, but you do not need to record a video to mirror the iPad screen with QuickTime Player.

Option 2: Use AirPlay to Mirror iPad on the Mac

You can AirPlay your iPad screen to your Mac, this works wirelessly and very well if the iPad and Mac are near to each other.

1. From iPad, go to Control Center
2. Tap on Screen Mirroring
3. Select the Mac display from the list
4. Give iPad a moment to connect to the Mac with AirPlay

The iPad display will appear on the Mac, wirelessly.

This approach is great because it’s cable free, very quick to activate, and great for casual sharing. But because there’s some latency to wireless, if you want the fastest and most responsive mirroring experience then you’d want to use the USB-C cable approach discussed above with QuickTime Player.

Option 3: Continuity, Sidecar, & Universal Control

The Universal Control feature allows you to use an iPad from a Mac by using the Mac cursor and mouse. If the reason you want to mirror an ipad screen on your Mac is to be able to use the keyboard and mouse with it, this will service that need. Check out some Universal Control tips and tricks to get more out of that feature.

You can also extend your Mac display to the iPad, this is also not iPad Mirroring but it’s a handy feature that may suit your purposes as well. Check out how to use Sidecar.

The Continuity set of features allows you to use your iPad and Mac in a pretty seamless way, check those out.

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There you have it, several different ways to mirror iPad to the Mac using the currently available tools in MacOS and ipadOS, allowing you to perform iPad Mirroring, use the Mac cursor on the iPad, use the Mac keyboard on the iPad, and to wirelessly transmit the iPad screen to mirror it on the Mac.

I would expect iPad Mirroring to be a popular Mac app if Apple were to introduce the feature in MacOS, similar to iPhone Mirroring. While iPhone Mirroring is fantastic it is not without some shortcomings; the most obvious being that iPad Mirroring does not exist. But also, there are some curious usability issues like how you can’t access or use Control Center from iPhone Mirroring on the Mac, the iPhone camera can’t be used, and some other simple tasks and features that could be added or improved on. But overall, iPhone Mirroring is really amazing, so let’s hope the feature continues to evolve and gain new capabilities, including being able to use iPhone Mirroring as iPad Mirroring too, just natively and directly in MacOS, the same way. But because that feature doesn’t exist yet, try out the approaches we mention here for interim.

Do you have a preferred approach to mirroring your iPad display to your Mac? Do you wish there was a native iPad Mirroring app or feature in iPhone Mirroring? Share your thoughts in the comments.