Google recently rolled out its Nearby share feature, which lets you share files between android device without any trouble seamlessly. The android community has long been asking for an Android equivalent for IOS feature Airdrop. This announcement came not long after the government of India banned the two most used file transfer apps used here in India.

How Nearby Share Works

With Nearby Share, Android users can quickly share files to nearby users with the tap of a button. After tapping the “share” button in an app, users can share file(s) by selecting the “Nearby Share” option. Nearby users will then get a notification that someone wants to share content with them. Users will always have the option to “accept” or “decline” the file, so files are never transferred without explicit confirmation. After tapping “accept”, the file(s) are transferred using the best available communication protocol: Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy, WebRTC, or peer-to-peer WiFi. Thus, files can be shared even when the sender and recipient devices are both fully offline.

Nearby share works only if your contact is in the recipient’s phone, also we can change the visibility to a specific contact to further improve privacy.

Google announced that the nearby share functionality will roll out to Android users on Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) and above through a google play service update. As of now, nearby share is available only for google play service beta users.

Get Nearby Share Now!

The easiest way to get nearby share on your android device is to sign up for the google play services bet program. Click on the link below and join the beta program.

Sign Up For Google Play Beta

After you’re a beta tester wait for the beta update to arrive, and after the update, nearby share will automatically roll out to you after some time.

Nearby share can also be used to share files from android to chromebooks or vice-versa. If you found this article helpful, please share it with your Friends.