How to show your phone photos and videos on the big TV

There is a special kind of pleasure in getting the whole family around the television and putting the holiday photos or the grandchildren's videos up on the big screen, where everyone can see them at once, instead of passing a little phone from hand to hand. Sending what is on your phone to the TV is called casting, and it sounds far more technical than it is. Once you know where the little cast icon lives and that both devices need to be on the same wifi, it takes about ten seconds. Let us walk through it gently, and clear up the one thing that trips almost everybody up.

What casting actually is

Casting simply means telling your phone to show something on the television instead of, or as well as, on the phone. The phone stays in your hand and does the choosing, and the TV becomes a big second screen that mirrors what you pick. Nothing is copied onto the TV and nothing is left behind afterwards; when you finish, the TV goes back to normal. So there is no mess to clean up and nothing to break. You are just borrowing the big screen for a while to enjoy your pictures together.

The one thing that makes it work: same wifi

Before anything else, hold onto this, because it is the whole secret: the phone and the TV must both be on the same home wifi. That is how the phone finds the TV in the first place. If they are on different networks, say the phone is on one wifi and the TV on another, or one has slipped onto mobile data, they simply cannot see each other, and the cast icon will not show your TV. Get them both onto the one home wifi and almost every casting problem disappears before it starts.

To check, look at the wifi name on your phone, then make sure the TV is joined to that very same name. Not a guest network, not the neighbour's, and not a slightly different name with "5G" on the end that some homes have. The very same one. This single check solves the great majority of "it will not connect" moments, so it is always the first thing to look at.

Finding the cast icon

The cast icon is a small picture of a screen with what looks like a little wifi signal in one corner. Once your phone and TV are on the same wifi, you will usually find this icon near the top of the app you are using, whether that is your photos, a video, or something like YouTube. It sits there quietly, waiting. If you cannot see it at all, that is nearly always the wifi again, telling you the phone has not found the TV yet.

When you tap the cast icon, a little list appears showing the screens your phone can send to. Your TV will be in that list, usually named after the brand of the television or the little streaming stick plugged into it. You tap the name of your TV, and after a moment or two the picture jumps up onto the big screen. That is the whole trick, and it feels wonderful the first time it works.

If you have an Apple phone: AirPlay

Apple has its own version of casting called AirPlay, and it works in just the same spirit. On an iPhone or iPad, the button looks like a screen with a small triangle at the bottom, and it does exactly what the cast icon does. You tap it, a list of screens appears, and you choose your Apple TV or a television that supports AirPlay. If your household has an iPhone and an Apple TV, this is the smoothest path, and everything talks to everything else without fuss.

You do not need to memorise which one you have, casting or AirPlay. The rule is the same either way: get both devices onto the same wifi, tap the little icon that looks like a screen, and pick your TV from the list. The phone quietly works out the rest, and you get your photos on the big screen either way.

Your phone becomes the remote

Here is the part people love. Once a photo or a video is up on the television, your phone turns into the remote control. You swipe to the next photo and the TV follows. You start and stop a video from the phone and the TV obeys. You can sit back in your chair with the phone in your lap and run the whole slideshow from there, without getting up. A phone call or a message coming in will not usually knock the picture off the screen, so you can relax and simply enjoy showing everyone the memories.

When you are done, there is a stop or disconnect button in the same place you found the cast icon. Tap it and the TV returns to whatever it was showing before. If you would rather not bother, simply closing the app or turning off the TV ends it too. Nothing is left running that you need to worry about.

When it will not connect

If your TV does not appear in the list, do not fret, it is almost always the wifi and almost always quick to fix. First, confirm both devices are on the exact same home network, as above, because that is the cause nine times out of ten. If they are both on the right wifi and it still will not show, turning the wifi on your phone off and on again, or restarting the TV, usually nudges them into finding each other. Some older televisions cannot cast at all on their own and need a small streaming stick to give them the ability, which is a simple thing to add. If it keeps refusing, our guide on where to start with tech help points you to the next steps.

Let us set it up with you

If any of this feels fiddly, showing your photos on the TV is one of the nicest little things to get sorted, and it does not take long. We make sure the phone and the television are on the same wifi, show you exactly where the cast or AirPlay icon lives on your particular phone, and let you practise it a couple of times until it feels like second nature. After that, putting the grandchildren up on the big screen takes seconds. Get in touch and we will sort it, gently and at your pace.