How To Watch Movies, Shows And Videos Together With Friends From Your PC

Share Your Screen And Let Friends Play Along

1. Put the movie, show or video on your PC and open it in full screen.
2. Your friends connect to your PC with APE Viewer and see what you see, with sound.
3. Free lets 1 friend join at a time. Premium on your PC lets up to 4 people join.
4. For this Windows walkthrough, both PCs need Windows 10 or 11 and a decent connection. Your upload speed matters when friends connect over the internet.

It’s Your Screen, Not A Copy Of The Video

APE Viewer captures your PC’s picture and sound and sends them to your friends, who watch in a normal window or full screen. Everyone sees your screen at its real resolution and frame rate, not the small, compressed picture a chat app’s screen share often gives you. Press play, pause or skip on your PC and everyone sees it at once.

Because they’re connected to your PC, friends can also use their own controller, so the same setup works for co-op games as well as movies. You decide what each person may do.

Step 1: Install APE Viewer On Both PCs

Download the installer from apeviewer.com and run it on your PC and on each friend’s PC. It’s the same app for both sides. On your PC, turn on sharing under Hosting.

Step 2: Add Your Friends

On the Friends page, add each friend by username or email. They get an invitation, and once they accept, they can find your PC in Your PCs and connect from anywhere. You can also pair a friend’s PC with a 6-digit code.

You can set what each friend may do on the Friends page before they ever connect, and change it while they’re watching.

Step 3: Choose What Each Friend Can Do

Open Hosting → People & permissions. For a movie night, View only is enough: friends watch and listen but can’t touch your mouse or keyboard. Full control adds their mouse, keyboard, controllers, clipboard, sound and drawing. File transfer stays off until you turn it on for someone.

Turn on Ask me first if you want to approve each person before they join.

Step 4: Show Only The Player, Not Your Whole Desktop

If you’d rather friends see just the video window, use What they see → Only some apps… for that friend, or the Share only some apps… button on the same tab, then tick the player. They see only that app’s windows, and their mouse and keyboard reach only those windows. Sound is still the whole PC’s sound, so pause other audio. Both PCs need APE Viewer 0.6.0 or later for this.

Step 5: Press Play

Open the video on your PC, put it in full screen, and tell your friends to connect. Each friend chooses your PC in Your PCs and connects. They see the picture within a moment, with sound.

• Use full screen on the player so friends aren’t looking at your taskbar and notifications. Turn on Do Not Disturb in Windows so private pop-ups don’t show.
• Mind your upload speed. Each person watching is another stream out of your connection. If it stutters, lower the bandwidth or frame rate under Your PCs → Picture, or set an Upload Limit per person under Hosting → Settings → Limits.
• Wire your PC to the router with Ethernet if you can. A friend on Wi-Fi is fine, but your PC is the one sending video.
• Check sound. Make sure each friend’s Sound permission is on and nobody muted the stream.
• Count down together. There’s a short delay between your PC and theirs, so say “three, two, one, play” and let everyone see it start.

Some Streaming Services Show A Black Picture

Services that protect their videos can show a black picture instead of the movie when anything captures or shares your screen. This happens with screen sharing in any app, not just APE Viewer. If the video is black for your friends, try a different player or browser, or ask the service’s support what it allows.

Everyone Needs Their Own Access To A Paid Service

If you watch a service that needs a subscription, each person should have their own access and follow that service’s rules. Sharing your screen is meant for videos you’re allowed to show, such as your own files, free videos and things you’re all entitled to watch.

The Steps Above Use Windows

The steps above use Windows 10 or 11 on both PCs. Apple Silicon Mac and Linux x64 viewer previews can connect to Windows hosts, with separate requirements and feature limits. Mac and Linux hosting and mobile apps are not available. Your PC needs supported NVIDIA, AMD or Intel hardware video encoding to share its screen.

Free has no time limit and lets 1 person connect to your shared PC at a time, which is enough for a movie with one friend. Premium on your PC lets up to 4 people connect at once and adds connecting from anywhere over the internet without router setup. It’s $6.99 a month or $49 a year, with a 1-day free trial for new subscribers. For the details, see the Help page and how APE Viewer compares.