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.
The protocol Apple uses under the hood is AWDL (Apple Wireless Direct Link), which is a proprietary peer-to-peer layer that runs alongside your existing WiFi connection without dropping it. It uses a time-sliced channel-hopping mechanism so the radio can serve both infrastructure WiFi and the direct peer link simultaneously.
That's the part that's hard to replicate. LocalSend and most alternatives need an existing shared network because they're just TCP/IP, they have no way to negotiate a direct radio link without OS-level support. Even Android's QuickShare, which does peer-to-peer via WiFi Direct, drops your existing WiFi connection on older devices because the radio can only be associated with one BSS at a time.
The EU interoperability mandate lxgr mentions would theoretically require Apple to expose this, but AWDL interop would mean licensing or reverse-engineering some fairly deep radio scheduling logic, so I'd expect compliance via a different (probably slower) path.
AWDL is such an amazing technology, it's understandable that Apple wants to keep it only for their devices as it gives them a noticeable advantage for quick stuff sharing.
> 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.
Not 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.
Yes 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.
No. It is using a central “well known server” and requires internet.
Test:
* Does it work in an airplane?
* Does it work in a submarine?
* Does it work in the mountains, when a thunderstorm is approach and you need to share the GPX?
Basically my Garmin Edge and iPhone can do this. Magic-Wormhole fails in all test cases.
Implementation shall be able to negoiate a connection locally (e.g. Bluetooth) and upgrade to peer-to-peer WiFi if need (Garmin doesn’t need that part, GPX are usually smaller than 1024 KB).
Recently started using it, it works really well and it's much more reliable than AirDrop. But the UX could be improved.
But I just wish Apple fixed AirDrop, every time I go to use I have so little confidence in it, it often doesn't see devices or if you have multiple Mac users it will confuse them, showing you the same Mac device twice without telling you which user it is
I'm curious, what do you people use this for? What are all these (presumably large) files that you guys are generating and transferring, that requires the use of apps like these?
Like in my case, the only files I generate on my phone are photos and videos, and these get backed up by Immich, which I can then share with someone by sending them a link to the files/album in question. I imagine normal folks would use iCloud or Google Photos for the same task.
For syncing other files like documents and such, I use ownCloud OCIS, and I'd imagine most other folks would use something like DropBox or iCloud, or even just email or WhatsApp the files.
For local network transfers of say ISOs or something, I'd just copy them over SMB, which is pretty much universal and doesn't need any special app. Or even just plug in a hard drive, if I'm doing backups.
For me, video is the main one. Sizes from 100MB - 3GB. Getting videos from an Apple device to an Android is a pain in the ass because I need to 2FA log in or click through something relatively convoluted (Dropbox, GDrive) or deal with pulling out some hardware I use once every 100 years (external drives). Localsend is a 2 or 3 click operation and very robust.
Yup, for me I can see the device but when I try to initiate a send it just doesn't show up on the other device about half the time. I've not found a reliable way to fix it either, toggling AirDrop on and off on both devices seems the best way to fix it but only works like 70% of the time.
I love this app, it's on all my devices, it's also written in my favourite cross platform development framework (dart/flutter). Very useful app, with a massive advantage of airdrop, no need for apple. Irrespective of if it's a drop in replacement.
It's not even close to the speed AirDrop has. This is not an alternative to AirDrop. I tried it multiple times but it's slow every time. These alternatives don't use the same technology.
It is an alternative. It just doesn't fulfill all the needs Airdrop does. I've had situation where I want to share a photo or a text file and it'll work great in that scenario.
I use it on all my devices and tbh it's the absolute best option I found.
Previously I was using syncthing or had to install ftp server, used wormhole after packing all my files into one, etc. Android QuickShare never worked for me (wouldn't help me much with sending to the pc either).
It has some rough edges (ie: on multi-homed devices it's less that ideal to see the one octet that matters, when the list is very long scrolling whilst sending will cause the process to crap out), but other than that it's always reliable.
I'd love this to work but I always had trouble making it work on my google tv.
Wanted to share files (~2 gb files) from my Mac to my TV but the transfer kept failing
One of the most convenient aspects of Air Drop for me is that it selects the fastest available connection between the devices and ability to work without both devices being on the same network.
I tried on three phones, two of which are using the same account, I'm reasonably confident I am technically competent to not make silly mistakes, though the best I've achieved was endless wait.
I had better success with IR and BT file transfers. Hell, even spinning a local http server (with python -m http.server) works better than quick share.
They have web app but had terrible experience with it (can't find devices when you are using the mobile app and the other device is using the web app).
I like kde connect, but find it randomly breaks every month or so and for the life of me cannot figure out why. A week or so later it starts working again.
came with omarchy pre installed, usedd it ever since. bonus points for it being open source too.
i was surprised it is written in flutter. looking at how mutli-platform it is, flutter was the more appealing choice.
It’s not as slick as AirDrop and you have to sort of “prep“ both devices whenever you want to send/receive anything, it’s never just ready to go, but it’s incredibly reliable and will move anything from one machine to another. Just having that consistency across literally any device is so nice.
Because none of them actually match the capabilities of AirDrop, since they essentially require controlling the full stack (UI, low-level networking including Bluetooth for discoverability, Wi-Fi peer to peer connections without dropping any existing infrastructure connection etc.)
Many have tried, I don't think anyone has succeeded.
Supposedly the EU interoperability mandate will make this possible going forward, though? (The tricky part is usually not getting your device to speak some protocol, but to get Apple devices to actually respond to your attempts.)
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.
The protocol Apple uses under the hood is AWDL (Apple Wireless Direct Link), which is a proprietary peer-to-peer layer that runs alongside your existing WiFi connection without dropping it. It uses a time-sliced channel-hopping mechanism so the radio can serve both infrastructure WiFi and the direct peer link simultaneously.
That's the part that's hard to replicate. LocalSend and most alternatives need an existing shared network because they're just TCP/IP, they have no way to negotiate a direct radio link without OS-level support. Even Android's QuickShare, which does peer-to-peer via WiFi Direct, drops your existing WiFi connection on older devices because the radio can only be associated with one BSS at a time.
The EU interoperability mandate lxgr mentions would theoretically require Apple to expose this, but AWDL interop would mean licensing or reverse-engineering some fairly deep radio scheduling logic, so I'd expect compliance via a different (probably slower) path.
AWDL is such an amazing technology, it's understandable that Apple wants to keep it only for their devices as it gives them a noticeable advantage for quick stuff sharing.
They didn't. Apple contributed the core logic to the Wi-Fi Alliance to build Wi-Fi Aware, which they now also support.
Interestingly, it still took the EU to force them to actually adopt it (and open it up for apps to use) in iOS 26.
The EU required they use an open standard https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/11/the-eu-made-apple-ad...
Seems weird there is no 802.n variant to do this very popular thing
That'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.
I've never heard of Wi-Fi Aware, thanks for sharing. Are there any devices/chips that support it today?
For 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
Very cool, I didn't know about this. I'll watch it with interest.
I am usually able to coerce a Localsend connection by using a WiFi hotspot on the target device.
Usually, but not always.
I 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.
I 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.
Can't QuickShare cross-platform. My wife has an iPhone and my desktop and laptop are linux, so QuickShare is a non-solution for me.
KDE Connect works pretty great for sending files, though you do have to be on the same network.
Which alternatives are you using for AirDrop on Linux? I haven't been able to find a good one for this yet.
QuickShare and KDE Connect
QuickShare is compatible with AirDrop these days, thanks to EU regulations: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/11/the-eu-made-apple-ad...
One 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.
Glass half empty kinda guy, huh? :-)
Not 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.
If you're on a hike you can get on the same network by joining your friend's phone WiFi hotspot.
I literally said that in my comment. I also said it's not as nice an experience.
Wireguard VPN to your home network, and then you can do anything
"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."
That'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.
And everyone you ever want to share files with locally also has access to your home VPN?
Yes 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.
And it works in the browser. https://web.localsend.org/
From windows to android to iOS.
Amazing! Though v1.18.0 hasn't dropped in F-droid yet
Just use the existing magic wormhole protocol. It works and has been deployed for a long time.
No. It is using a central “well known server” and requires internet.
Test:
Basically my Garmin Edge and iPhone can do this. Magic-Wormhole fails in all test cases.Implementation shall be able to negoiate a connection locally (e.g. Bluetooth) and upgrade to peer-to-peer WiFi if need (Garmin doesn’t need that part, GPX are usually smaller than 1024 KB).
Recently started using it, it works really well and it's much more reliable than AirDrop. But the UX could be improved.
But I just wish Apple fixed AirDrop, every time I go to use I have so little confidence in it, it often doesn't see devices or if you have multiple Mac users it will confuse them, showing you the same Mac device twice without telling you which user it is
I'm curious, what do you people use this for? What are all these (presumably large) files that you guys are generating and transferring, that requires the use of apps like these?
Like in my case, the only files I generate on my phone are photos and videos, and these get backed up by Immich, which I can then share with someone by sending them a link to the files/album in question. I imagine normal folks would use iCloud or Google Photos for the same task.
For syncing other files like documents and such, I use ownCloud OCIS, and I'd imagine most other folks would use something like DropBox or iCloud, or even just email or WhatsApp the files.
For local network transfers of say ISOs or something, I'd just copy them over SMB, which is pretty much universal and doesn't need any special app. Or even just plug in a hard drive, if I'm doing backups.
So I don't understand why I should be using this.
For me, video is the main one. Sizes from 100MB - 3GB. Getting videos from an Apple device to an Android is a pain in the ass because I need to 2FA log in or click through something relatively convoluted (Dropbox, GDrive) or deal with pulling out some hardware I use once every 100 years (external drives). Localsend is a 2 or 3 click operation and very robust.
Luckily, Google enabled Airdrop inside of Quick Share so my phones and my MacBook and my Windows PC all can share now.
my kid recently wanted to transfer a picture from an iPad drawing app to a windows laptop, I wish I knew about localsend for that
Have you tried troubleshooting those issues already? I had similar visibility issues in the past, but seems to always work now for me.
I think it initiates the connection over Bluetooth so if your Bluetooth is poor it isn’t going to work very well.
Yup, for me I can see the device but when I try to initiate a send it just doesn't show up on the other device about half the time. I've not found a reliable way to fix it either, toggling AirDrop on and off on both devices seems the best way to fix it but only works like 70% of the time.
I love this app, it's on all my devices, it's also written in my favourite cross platform development framework (dart/flutter). Very useful app, with a massive advantage of airdrop, no need for apple. Irrespective of if it's a drop in replacement.
https://github.com/schlagmichdoch/pairdrop
A similar project but this one works entirely in the browser and can connect to clients beyond your local network with "public" rooms
I feel like we need a spamsolutions.txt [1] for purported AirDrop replacements.
This one fails the "must not require an existing Wi-Fi network that both peers are connected to" criterion.
[1] https://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt
It's not even close to the speed AirDrop has. This is not an alternative to AirDrop. I tried it multiple times but it's slow every time. These alternatives don't use the same technology.
It is an alternative. It just doesn't fulfill all the needs Airdrop does. I've had situation where I want to share a photo or a text file and it'll work great in that scenario.
I use it on all my devices and tbh it's the absolute best option I found.
Previously I was using syncthing or had to install ftp server, used wormhole after packing all my files into one, etc. Android QuickShare never worked for me (wouldn't help me much with sending to the pc either).
It has some rough edges (ie: on multi-homed devices it's less that ideal to see the one octet that matters, when the list is very long scrolling whilst sending will cause the process to crap out), but other than that it's always reliable.
I'm very happy with it too.
For your own trusted devices on a LAN, you should try KDE Connect. KDE is not required.
After switching to Linux, this was one of the very first applications I installed.
It really helped cement how great open source apps can be for me.
List of browser based p2p file sharing tools https://gist.github.com/SMUsamaShah/fd6e275e44009b72f64d0570...
I'd love this to work but I always had trouble making it work on my google tv. Wanted to share files (~2 gb files) from my Mac to my TV but the transfer kept failing
One of the most convenient aspects of Air Drop for me is that it selects the fastest available connection between the devices and ability to work without both devices being on the same network.
I wonder if any of the alternatives do the same.
Quickshare does
Never worked for me, not even once.
I tried on three phones, two of which are using the same account, I'm reasonably confident I am technically competent to not make silly mistakes, though the best I've achieved was endless wait.
I had better success with IR and BT file transfers. Hell, even spinning a local http server (with python -m http.server) works better than quick share.
Posted here many times https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=github.com/localsend
Great app. I wish it supported PWA features like Web Share Targeting.
https://web.dev/articles/web-share
https://developer.chrome.com/docs/capabilities/web-apis/web-...
They have web app but had terrible experience with it (can't find devices when you are using the mobile app and the other device is using the web app).
https://github.com/localsend/web
Lovely, but was replaced by KDE Connect for me. Connect works for iOS, macOS, Android, Linux, you name it.
I like kde connect, but find it randomly breaks every month or so and for the life of me cannot figure out why. A week or so later it starts working again.
came with omarchy pre installed, usedd it ever since. bonus points for it being open source too. i was surprised it is written in flutter. looking at how mutli-platform it is, flutter was the more appealing choice.
D'accord.
I used it, but it prevented my mac from sleeping. After some investigation I found it's local send.
Does it run in the background?
I use this all the time dropping files from old android device to mac, thanks devs!
I've been using this for years, simple, gets the job done. Nice UI.
Been using LocalSend for a few years, it works great even when sharing files between devices sharing a mobile connection.
So needed
I love local send. It’s ridiculously fast for sending large amounts of media too.
Really cool! I used it a couple of times and did not expect it to work. But it worked. :D
It’s not as slick as AirDrop and you have to sort of “prep“ both devices whenever you want to send/receive anything, it’s never just ready to go, but it’s incredibly reliable and will move anything from one machine to another. Just having that consistency across literally any device is so nice.
i really wish Wi-Fi Direct succeeded
maybe eventually something like quickshare & airdrop mold into an interoperable thing but i'm not holding my breath
Excuse my ignorance but why are there so many solutions like this? Especially if they aren't intercompatible (which I'm assuming they're not)
Because none of them actually match the capabilities of AirDrop, since they essentially require controlling the full stack (UI, low-level networking including Bluetooth for discoverability, Wi-Fi peer to peer connections without dropping any existing infrastructure connection etc.)
Many have tried, I don't think anyone has succeeded.
Supposedly the EU interoperability mandate will make this possible going forward, though? (The tricky part is usually not getting your device to speak some protocol, but to get Apple devices to actually respond to your attempts.)
The README and website certainly seem polished, but I haven't used the utility yet.
What's the main value prop over wormhole? That it works from the browser?
That you can send over 1000 files without it messing it up, and they'll end in the right place.
That you can set the recipient so it will auto-accept from the trusted senders.
And for me that in Android I can do Share to....localsend to do it faster than with wormhole.
Hey I use this. Works great. Ez.