7 ms·
My problem is that all these alternatives require the devices to be on the same local network. One beauty of Airdrop is that it creates and handles that local
by eigenspace 6mo ago
My problem is that all these alternatives require the devices to be on the same local network.
One beauty of Airdrop is that it creates and handles that local network automatically under the hood (as far as I understand). So you could be out on a hike with friends and Airdrop something.
The workaround I've found after switching to an Android device has been to teather my connection to my friend's device, which ends up creating a LAN that Localsend can work through, but this is not as nice an experience.
- simonmales 6mo agoI think nowadays on Android it's called QuickShare, and it works. But I believe the fragmentation and awareness is a part of the problem for Android.
- eigenspace 6mo agoCan't QuickShare cross-platform. My wife has an iPhone and my desktop and laptop are linux, so QuickShare is a non-solution for me.
- vrganj 6mo agoQuickShare is compatible with AirDrop these days, thanks to EU regulations: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/11/the-eu-made-apple-adopt-new-wi-fi-standards-and-now-android-can-support-airdrop/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/11/the-eu-made-apple-ad...
- eigenspace 6mo agoOne Android phone supports it so far, and it's widely expected Apple will find some way to lock it out or at least delay more support.
- vrganj 6mo agoGlass half empty kinda guy, huh? :-)
- eigenspace 6mo agoNot generally, I just don't have that specific phone that has implemented the workaround, and so this isn't a solution for me. Apple has consistently done everything it can to self-sabotage their implementations of stuff to comply with EU anti-trust legislation like the stuff with digital marketplaces, so I'm not holding my breath on this.
- reaperducer 6mo agoit's widely expected Apple will find some way to lock it out I suppose that is "widely expected" from the usual group of anti-Apple internet griefers looking for a reason to moan in public, rather than actually doing some research or knowing things. To quote a sibling comment: "Apple contributed the core logic to the Wi-Fi Alliance to build Wi-Fi Aware, which they now also support."
- Gigachad 6mo agoI don’t think this article is actually accurate. It seems like Google just reverse engineered airdrop rather than Apple changing the tech they use. Because quickshare works with all airdrop devices now. Not just ones recently updated.
- Xantier 6mo agoWhich alternatives are you using for AirDrop on Linux? I haven't been able to find a good one for this yet.
- eigenspace 6mo agoLocalsend and KDE Connect
- chasil 6mo agoI used to use Nitroshare, but Localsend has supplanted it.
- coldstartops 6mo agoI've built my own, called KEIBIDROP :D but did not release the mobile apps let https://github.com/KeibiSoft/KeibiDrop https://github.com/KeibiSoft/KeibiDrop
- lukeschlather 6mo agoWith Linux it's very easy as long as you're okay going offline - just make an ad hoc wifi network, have the other device connect to it, then you can do whatever (Localsend, host a local webserver on the linux machine, whatever.)
- olyjohn 6mo agoKDE Connect works pretty great for sending files, though you do have to be on the same network.
- davsti4 6mo agorquickshare works on Linux and is 99% reliable for me, but I don't have a suggestion for iOS devices since I don't use them. https://github.com/Martichou/rquickshare/releases https://github.com/Martichou/rquickshare/releases
- sica07 6mo agoThis is what rquickshare documentation says: "Wi-Fi LAN only. Your devices need to be on the same network for this app to work." So no, it's not an AirDrop replacement.
- raxxorraxor 6mo agoProblem is that only notebooks/tablets and few pcs have bluetooth, which is used for the handshake for AirDrop. If we had good mobile OS I bet we would have a solution for both... Personally I just use wifi/smb for file transfer and hate it when someone comes with their iPhone and isn't able to send a file to me.
- Melatonic 6mo agoDidn't they just announce compatibility between specific Android devices and iOS airdrop using Quickshare recently ?
- SingleSourceAI 6mo ago[flagged]
- idiotsecant 6mo agoSeems weird there is no 802.n variant to do this very popular thing
- neilalexander 6mo agoThat's precisely what Wi-Fi Aware (NaN) is and it is heavily based on AWDL. It's even built into recent versions of iOS and Android.
- infogulch 6mo agoI've never heard of Wi-Fi Aware, thanks for sharing. Are there any devices/chips that support it today?
- Gigachad 6mo agoiOS 26 supports it. I tried looking in to it and I couldn’t find anything using it yet though.
- bee_rider 6mo agoWait did they actually name it NaN or is that a joke?
- jiveturkey 6mo agoNAN, not NaN. NaN is parent's editorialization or muscle memory.
- bee_rider 6mo agoOh; I thought maybe it just didn’t have an 802 type name so it might have just been a little joke. Anyway, good to know we can use our NAN signal to send signal NaNs!
- nyreed 6mo agoFor true crossplatform p2p the closest I have found is FlyingCarpet [1]. But it is not super reliable or friendly. [1] https://github.com/spieglt/FlyingCarpet https://github.com/spieglt/FlyingCarpet
- eigenspace 6mo agoVery cool, I didn't know about this. I'll watch it with interest.
- rubslopes 6mo agoThanks for the tip. Just tried it and it worked great between MacOS and Android.
- cachius 6mo agoMake sure to also try PairDrop https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47935875 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47935875 It's a pretty polished PWA you don't even need to install as it uses WebRTC P2P streaming in the local network or via TURN over internet. So a good solution for ad-hoc file sharing without ad-hoc network.
- justmarc 6mo agoWe've made the one true, and ultimate, cross platform P2P + E2EE data transfer tool out there. Both UI and CLI with complete feature parity on any device/OS, between the same user's devices and between users. https://zynk.it https://zynk.it
- 6mo ago
- lorenzohess 6mo agoIf you're on a hike you can get on the same network by joining your friend's phone WiFi hotspot.
- eigenspace 6mo agoI literally said that in my comment. I also said it's not as nice an experience.
- lorenzohess 6mo agoWhoops, totally missed that. Maybe Localsend could include some "discover" mode where Wi-Fi hotspot connection happens automatically?
- kalleboo 6mo agoI'm honestly surprised that WiFi Hotspot doesn't isolate hosts, after companies like Meta have been caught running servers inside their apps and connecting to those to track users.
- solstice 6mo agoI was too when due to network problems at our last traditional LAN-party (WC3, CS1.6 etc.) we used the hotspot feature of one phone to get everyone on a local network. I was skeptical and assumed the PCs wouldnt be able to see each other but lo and behold: it worked flawlessly!
- tetris11 6mo agoWireguard VPN to your home network, and then you can do anything
- agrounds 6mo agoAnd everyone you ever want to share files with locally also has access to your home VPN?
- teew 6mo ago"Check out this alternative road vehicle I invented: it works on most surfaces except it can't drive on inter-city roads." "You could fix that by builing a rail track and using a train."
- eigenspace 6mo agoThat's an even worse solution than the hacky workaround of just teathering my internet connection. The whole point of these solutions is to not have to transmit data over the internet, it should work over a local dynamic connection.
- Fokamul 6mo agoYes exactly, that's why another RCE which will be found in Airdrop, if found by bad actor. Will be pretty fun to watch. Last RCE in Airdrop, could be made into worm, it was found by whitehat, luckily for Apple there are still people, which are willing report exploits for little money, so billionaires can enjoy their life on yachts.
- DaSHacka 6mo agoHow is this at all unique to AirDrop?
- chasil 6mo agoI am usually able to coerce a Localsend connection by using a WiFi hotspot on the target device. Usually, but not always.
- eigenspace 6mo agoI literally said that in my comment: > The workaround I've found after switching to an Android device has been to teather my connection to my friend's device, which ends up creating a LAN that Localsend can work through, but this is not as nice an experience.
- sholladay 6mo agoNot only that, but with iOS 17.1 or later, AirDrop transfers will continue to work if you go out of Wi-Fi range during the transfer. It seamlessly switches to an Internet-based relay.
- lxgr 6mo agoWhich, in my view, significantly decreases the value proposition, as there is no way to deactivate this feature to my knowledge (at least not without also opting out of other useful features under the "Handoff" umbrella). A typical Apple feature, dreamed up by engineers that are presumably not aware of the existence of metered data plans...
- sholladay 6mo agoYou can disable it, actually. Settings > General > AirDrop > turn off Use Cellular Data That said, I don’t really see why you would disable that. It’s only a backup method for when the peer-to-peer connection fails. Unless you are sending huge files on a regular basis, I wouldn’t expect it to be worth disabling. Also, most metered plans I’ve encountered just cause your connection to be very slow after you hit the data cap. If you are on a plan that automatically charges you excessive overage fees without warning and there is no other choice, then my condolences.
- lxgr 6mo agoOh, cool, thank you! I must have used the wrong search terms; I could only find vague hints about deactivating Handoff/Continuity. I stand corrected, and I appreciate that Apple did consider the non-Bay-Area use case :) > Unless you are sending huge files on a regular basis I do use AirDrop extensively for sharing photos when traveling. One sharing session could easily eat through my roaming allowance.
- askldfhalkdfh 6mo agoThis. Localsend may be very useful for a set of devices you control or influence. The USP of Airdrop is ad hoc sharing with people you don't really know. Classic case is meeting strangers on holiday and you want to swap some photos of the trip you're on. One or both of you doesn't have data or time to install anything, or it's just too hard to persuade someone they should install random app. Pairing Bluetooth or setting up local networks is way too convoluted and time consuming. With Airdrop you have trivially easy, "just works" sharing with people in proximity. It works great between iPhones and Pixel phones now they support it. It just needs support to spread to more Android devices.
- davely 6mo ago> With Airdrop you have trivially easy, "just works" sharing with people in proximity. Funny enough, I encounter so many problems trying to share things via AirDrop with friends, family, and even my own Apple devices that I just tell everyone to install LocalSend and I find that things work better. I’m not sure why that is, because AirDrop used to work pretty well for me. But it’s been an exercise in frustration more often than not for me. (Obviously, LocalSend works only as long as everyone is on the same network.)
- Melatonic 6mo agoI've found it very often falls back to sending over your internet connection even if your cell reception sucks. No idea why. People on a previous HN thread talked about solutions
- t43562 6mo agosetting up local networks is so trivial compared to forcing everyone to buy an Apple gizmo.
- bee_rider 6mo agoTrue. But I mean these are photos (from strangers that you aren’t even willing to exchange phone numbers with?). It is a really non-essential feature anyway, so most likely everybody who doesn’t have an Apple device skips it.
- satvikpendem 6mo agoIroh is a relay protocol for peer to peer transfers over the Internet so it doesn't have this problem, check out my other comment here about wrappers around the protocol for sending files, Sendme is the one I use. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47935026 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47935026
- eigenspace 6mo agoI don't want to send things over the internet, I want to do things locally.
- t43562 6mo agobluetooth is local. Actually, I realise I'm being facetious since I've not managed to get Apple bluetooth to connect to anything non Apple yet.
- eigenspace 6mo agoBluetooth is also very slow. Airdrop and Localsend achieve speed by using local wifi networks. The problem with Localsend is that the user themselves need to manage the creation of the local network.
- landr0id 6mo agohttps://www.iroh.computer/sendme https://www.iroh.computer/sendme Iroh's protocol can figure out if the devices are on the same LAN and avoid going over the internet. It can work without a discovery server too -- i.e. completely LAN.
- lakshyanoir 6mo agotry out this app called "Blip". It doesn't require you to be on the same network.
- eigenspace 6mo agoIt does require an internet connection though, which is worse.
- WhyNotHugo 6mo agoIndeed, Localsend only does the last step of what Airdrop does. With Localsend, you need to: - Create an ad-hoc Wi-Fi network on one device. - Connect the other device(s) to that Wi-Fi network. - Now run Localsend. The first two steps are a bit of a drag, and the fact that Airdrop handles it is what makes it so frictionless to use.
- giobox 6mo agoRight, the first two steps are what make AirDrop, "AirDrop". This isn't an alternative at all if it requires both devices to already be connected to the same WiFi. AirDrop is fantastic for sharing files with people you don't know/just met - if we have to find and agree to join the same wifi before we interact we are no longer talking about the same feature. If Apple's AirDrop implementation had required people to join the same WiFi first, the feature would never have taken off the way it has among non-techy users. I'm still today mildly surprised I can use AirDrop as a verb in conversation and most of the time the other party knows what I mean.
- max8539 6mo agoAirdrop is also pretty weird: sometimes it can’t find other phones (probably when a previous transfer failed silently in the background). Also, it had some issues searching for contacts when there was no mobile/Wi-Fi connection (tried to send photos to another phone in the mountains). Sometimes it could just freeze and not work… Apple magic here isn’t really useful.
- kitchi 6mo agoI've recently started using blip, which works very similarly to airdrop after the initial pairing has happened. The devices do not need to be on the same network etc.
- tremarley 6mo agoFeem is the only reliable one I've found that doesn't rely on being on the same local network It works on iOS and Android
- nine_k 6mo agoSpeaking of ad-hoc communication channels that do not require shared infrastructure: I like the idea of https://github.com/divan/txqr https://github.com/divan/txqr which sends data using animated QR codes. An ultimate guarantee of physical proximity. The bandwidth is not comparable to WiFi 6, of course, but no OS support is required.
- cachius 6mo agoWith color it would be even faster! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Capacity_Color_Barcode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Capacity_Color_Barcode
- cachius 6mo agoThe better example for colored QRs is https://jabcode.org/ https://jabcode.org/ by by Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology. It is more recent and actively maintained.
- randomeel 6mo agoI just use blip to send files to anyone on any device
- randomeel 6mo agoI just use blip to send files to anyone on any device but it requires an account
- moo-jason 6mo agohttps://mbarlow.github.io/thinair/ https://mbarlow.github.io/thinair/ Device to device transfer, just a static github page. gh repo: https://github.com/mbarlow/thinair https://github.com/mbarlow/thinair Creates QR codes for each device to scan for webrtc. Android to android will do an audible chirp that lets the devices know to switch from qr code mode to opening the camera to scan each others codes. Tested android to apple and working, the audio chirp doesn't get caught by apple. Just wait and eventually the qr code will dissolve to allow scanning step. Just threw this together. I was playing with audio handshake using bird-like chirp "songs" or old school modem between smartphones. Fun putting phones together as they send audio frames and confirm to start transfer, but unreliable and slow to handshake. I would like to cleanup the flow to improve. I've started using it for sending files between iphone/android/pc without having to deal with apps, emails, accounts, etc. blah.
- nomel 6mo agoWhenever I need to use something like this it's because the device isn't mine, which makes this so much better than an app. Would be cool if there was a text message option, and a bit of server so the second scan wouldn't be required. Pretty funny how simple the concept is though.
- thingortwo 6mo agoThis is using webrtc and speeds are slower than a physical USB I get 3-4MB/s instead of local network speed of 30MB/s due to browser browser implementation bottlenecks. I needed fast local network sharing of files over 5GB and tried a lot of approaches and speed doesn't budge more than 6-7MB/s . Also you don't even need a server atleast for now in chrome webrtc transfer can work over a file:// in firefox it doesn't. For signaling you could even use free peerjs tunnel or other when user is connected to internet and otherwise fallback to this QR or offer code sharing. This will become so useful if browsers eliminate those bottlenecks. also even in localsend speeds are limited usually to my internet speed for some reason.
- JayDustheadz 6mo agoDoesn't seem to work for sending files from my Mac to my Android - I scan the code on the phone and....nothing happens? I tried sending via FF/Safari/Brave and receiving on FF/DDG. No idea what am I doing wrong.
- justmarc 6mo agoThat's why we worked very hard to create the ultimate, nothing held back tool and recently launched it. Works across any device/user/platform. UI, CLI, Local network, over the internet, anything. P2P + E2EE. https://zynk.it https://zynk.it
- eigenspace 6mo agoNot interested in an over-over-the-internet solution. What makes Airdrop good is that it's local.
- justmarc 6mo agoWorks locally too, for local transfers.
- p_stuart82 6mo agoyeah the airdrop part is not having to turn one phone into a hotspot first.
- bear330 6mo agoMaybe you can try this: https://github.com/nuwainfo/ffl https://github.com/nuwainfo/ffl It's Android App don't need LAN to share: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fastfilelink.wrapper https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fastfileli...
- ngokevin 6mo agoAirdrop has not felt reliable to me all the time, and completely fails on anything larger than a picture or short video. Especially if you are storing your files on iCloud and the pictures and videos don't live on your phone. Been using Localsend to transfer bigger files between phone / laptops, never fails or has trouble finding a device, or stalling.
- Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe 6mo agowebsend works even on separate networks. https://github.com/thiswillbeyourgithub/WebSend https://github.com/thiswillbeyourgithub/WebSend Note that I'm currently refactoring it heavily (the code is awful currently).
- raxxorraxor 6mo agoI think the initial handshake for Airdrop is through bluetooth and then both devices peer through wifi. Not sure why there isn't a solution for Android, perhaps there are hardware limitations, I don't know the bluetooth stack. If we would have good operating systems, perhaps this would be easier and more widely spread. Otherwise the solution has to come from the device manufacturer.