how-to-chromecast-form-laptop

How to chromecast from laptop – Step by Step guide

Did you ever wish to watch you computer screen on you big TV screen? But you were disappointed because you have to hook your laptop up with you TV screen via HDMI cable and cables can become such a pain very quickly. With great success of our chromecast with kodi tutorial, many of our readers sent us emails about a similar tutorials in which they want to know how to chromecast from laptop. Today I will try to answer this question for you so without any delay, lets start chromecasting from computer.

The basic idea behind chromecast is to stream media files from your android or iOS device to your HDTV and Google has made the process very much simple for those devices. But with chromecast you can only stream selective apps which support chromecast streaming feature.

Youtube, Netflix and many other apps do support chromecast but if you want to stream you mobile screen to chromecast TV then google doesn’t allow that because the experience is not completely seemless. You will face stutters and lag which can become annoying very quickly.

We have already covered how to chromecast with kodi and you can check that guide out. Although there are not many programs for laptops and computers to stream laptop screen via chromecast, Google’s Chrome Web Browser has some tricks up its sleeves.

How to chromecast from laptop

To begin, there are some quick pre-requisites that I want you to keep handy. Although I am sure that you already have these with you but still I am listing these below.

  • Google ChromeCast HDMI dongle, Both the 1st and 2nd generation of Google ChromeCast will do. If you are looking for one then please use the link given below to buy Google ChromeCast as it helps us.
    how to chromecast from laptop
  • Make sure that your laptop and ChromeCast is connected to the same Wi-Fi network.
  • If you just want to chromecast your laptop web browser then the process is quite simple. There is an extension available in Chrome web store that allows you to chromecast from your laptop to your TV. The Extension is called Google Cast which is made by Google. I have provided download link of the extension below.

How to chromecast from laptop

The above provided link will take you to the extension page where you will see this page as shown below. Click the “Add to Chrome” button and the extension will get installed in your Google Chrome browser.

 chromecast from laptop guide

 

Once the Extenstion is successfully installed, You shall see a new button right next to the menu button of Google Chrome. Click the Google Cast button and you shall see a start up screen asking you for the permission if you want to help in the improvement of Google Cast extension or not.

How to chromecast from laptop to TV

It’s up to you if you want to send your usage and bug statistics to Google or not.

Click OK button and Google Chrome will automatically search for any chromecast available on wifi network. If your chromecast is connected to the same wifi as your laptop is, then your chromecast will show up in the list as shown in the picture below.

Once you have made sure that your laptop is communicating with your chromecast HDMI dongle, you can now go to whatever website you want in you chrome web browser and then select your Chromecast from Google Cast menu to chromecast from laptop.

You can chromecast only one chrome tab from you computer to your TV. If you want to chromecast another chrome tab to your TV then you will need to select that tab and chromecast it using the same method as mentioned above.

What if you want to chromecast movies from you laptop?

The process is equally simple as it is with the websites if not simpler.

  1. Once you have Google Cast extension installed in your Google Chrome Browser, open Google Chrome and minimize it to the task bar.
  2. Now go to the location of the movie you want to chromecast from laptop.
  3. Drag the movie file and hold it over the Google Chrome icon in the task bar. It will automatically open and then you can drag the movie file into the browser windows and it will start playing inside Google Chrome.
  4. Once the movie starts playing inside your laptop, Click the Google Cast extension button select you chromecast from there.
  5. Now  you can chromecast your laptop or computer movies via Google Cast extension for Google Chrome.

If you have a computer with decently powered hardware then you may minimize you chrome tab to the taskbar and the movie will continue to stream via Chromecast but keep in mind that the movie is being  compressed to the specified quality and it is being done right inside you computer. It might result in slower processing and the streaming quality will also suffer if you will do heavy tasks on your computer while movie is streaming.

Don’t forget to hook you laptop to the charger because Google Cast will use the processor a lot if you are streaming HD movie which you will probably do.

How to set the stream quality while streaming chromecast from laptop?

Google Cast will also allow you to set the streaming quality right inside the options menu of Google Cast extension. To change the streaming quality, Click the Google Cast button and select the Options menu. This will open settings of Google Cast. There you can manage all of your ChromeCasts if you have more than one.

How to chromecast from laptop

You can also choose what streaming quality you would like the Google cast to stream to your chromecast TV.

Pro Tip: If you want completely flawless experience in chromecast from laptop, Make sure that you have strong wifi signals on both the chromecast and your laptop. I highly recommend using wired connection for you laptop and keep your chromecast TV near Wi-Fi router.

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How to chromecast everything from your computer?

Mirroring only Google Chrome tabs was very easy but what if the movie you want to stream is not supported by the built in player of Google Chrome? or You want to stream powerpoint presentation or some other program that you can’t do with Google Chrome? To tackle this issue, I will show you how to mirror everything from you laptop to your TV? This will enable you to stream entire screen of your computer on to chromecast.

how to chromecast form laptop

Google Cast extension has somewhat hidden feature which allows you to chromecast entire computer screen to your TV which is still in experimental (beta) version but in our testing it worked with most of the programs that we tested. This feature does not provide completely flawless experience if you want to stream movies via VLC or Windows Media Player.

Cast videos from websites with high quality

There are hundreds of video streaming services including Youtube and Netflix which are now allowing its users to stream videos in HD right from the website as you were streaming it from your android or iOS device. As it is shown in the screenshot below, you can see that youtube is showing chromecast button right inside the player.

How-to-chromecast-from-laptop-to-TV

Make sure that Google Cast Chrome extension is installed because Chromecast button will not show up if you don’t have Google cast extension installed.

How to chromecast VLC player from your computer

VLC Player is currently not supporting chromecast at the time of writing this article but if you want to stream video files directly from your computer without using Google Chrome then you can download AirFlow in your Windows or Mac computer and it will allow you to cast almost every video file from your computer to chromecast.

Once you have successfully installed AirFlow in your laptop or computer, open it and drag and drop the video file inside airflow app.

AirFlow player will automatically start searching for any chromecast device available to play the video file and list it if any chromecast is available.

chromecast from laptop

AirFlow program is basically made for streaming video files from computer to Apple TV but it works for chromecast just as good.

If you are still not able to chromecast from your laptop then you have to check your computers firewall settings and make sure that there is nothing stopping your computer accessing chromecast.

That is it for now, if you found this tutorial helpful then make sure to share it with you friends at twitter and facebook and also follow us on Google+ and twitter and I will catch you soon.

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