  In the present work, we investigate how the large-scale magnetic field of the
Sun, in its three vector components, has evolved during most of cycle 24, from
2010 Jan to 2018 Apr. To filter out the small-scale field of the Sun, present
in high-resolution synoptic maps, we use a spherical harmonic decomposition
method, which decomposes the solar field in multipoles with different l
degrees. By summing together the low-l multipoles, we reconstruct the
large-scale field at a resolution similar to observed stellar magnetic fields,
which allows the direct comparison between solar and stellar magnetic maps.
During cycle 24, the `Sun-as-a-star' magnetic field shows a polarity reversal
in the radial and meridional components, but not in the azimuthal component.
The large-scale solar field remains mainly poloidal with > 70% of its energy
contained in the poloidal component. During its evolution, the large-scale
field is more axisymmetric and more poloidal when near minima in sunspot
numbers, and with a larger intensity near maximum. There is a correlation
between toroidal energy and sunspot number, which indicates that spot fields
are major contributors to the toroidal large-scale energy of the Sun. The solar
large-scale magnetic properties fit smoothly with observational trends of
stellar magnetism reported in See et al. The toroidal (Etor) and poloidal
(Epol) energies are related as Etor ~Epol^{1.38 \pm 0.04}. Similar to the
stellar sample, the large-scale field of the Sun shows a lack of toroidal
non-axisymmetric field.
