How to Share Files Between iPhone and Android

The Wall Between iPhone and Android

Each platform has its own sharing feature. AirDrop works between iPhones, iPads and Macs. Quick Share (formerly Nearby Share) works between Android phones, Chromebooks and Windows PCs. Neither was built to talk to the other.

That is starting to change. On select Android phones, Quick Share can now exchange files with an iPhone through AirDrop, as long as the iPhone is set to receive from Everyone for 10 Minutes. If your Android phone is on that list, try it first. Most Android phones are not, so you need another route.

The gap isn't about hardware. Both features use Bluetooth Low Energy to find nearby devices and a direct Wi-Fi link to move the data, and every modern phone has those radios. What's missing on most phones is a shared protocol between the two systems.

What Goes Wrong with Bluetooth File Transfer

Bluetooth is the first thing most people try, because both phones have it.

Android can send files over Bluetooth using OBEX Object Push, the same protocol older phones used to swap contacts and photos. iOS doesn't support OBEX file transfer. An iPhone uses Bluetooth for headphones, watches, keyboards and cars, but it has no receiver for a file pushed from an Android phone. You may see the iPhone in Android's Bluetooth list, but a file sent to it won't arrive.

So the built-in Bluetooth menus are out. Bluetooth itself isn't the problem: an app installed on both phones can use Bluetooth Low Energy to move data between them. OpenDrop Pro does this between two phones signed in to the same account when there is no Wi-Fi. Bluetooth is much slower than Wi-Fi, so treat it as a fallback for when there's no network.

The Cloud Workaround (And Why It's Slow)

Next, most people reach for cloud storage: upload from one phone to Google Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive, then download on the other. It works, and for a document or a few photos it's fine.

For video it gets slow. The file leaves your network, goes to a data center and comes back, even when both phones are on the same table. Most home connections upload much more slowly than they download, so the upload is the bottleneck. You wait for the whole file to upload before the other phone can start downloading it.

Storage quotas get in the way too. A Google account comes with 15 GB free, shared across Gmail, Drive and Photos. iCloud gives 5 GB, and iCloud Drive has no Android app, so Google Drive or Dropbox is usually the easier cloud route between the two phones. More on the trade-offs in the drawbacks of cloud file sharing.

Messaging Apps: Compression Is the Enemy

Sending a file to yourself through a messaging app is another common workaround. It's fine for a quick photo, but most messaging apps recompress photos and video by default to save bandwidth. What arrives is smaller and lower quality than the original.

• Messages on iPhone: iMessage only works between Apple devices. Messages to an Android phone go over RCS or MMS instead, which limit attachment size and can reduce media quality.
• WhatsApp: compresses photos and video by default. Sending the file as a document keeps the original.
• Telegram: compresses media by default. Sending it as a file keeps the original.
• Discord: keeps the original file, but free accounts have a small upload size limit.

All of these route the file through the company's servers, so they share the cloud problem: the full file uploads before the other phone can download it. They're good for sending a photo to someone else, because the recipient already has the app. For moving files between your own phones, a direct transfer is better.

What Actually Works: Direct Transfer Apps

A direct transfer app runs on both phones and sends the file between them over your local network, without uploading it anywhere first. On the same Wi-Fi, the speed depends on your router and your phones, not your internet connection, and the file arrives unchanged.

Quick Share with AirDrop needs no extra app if your Android phone supports it. Set AirDrop on the iPhone to Everyone for 10 Minutes and share from Quick Share. The list of supported phones is short, so check yours before relying on it.

LocalSend is free, open source (Apache 2.0) and needs no account. Install it on both phones and they find each other on the same network and send in either direction. It only works on the same network: if one phone is on Wi-Fi and the other is on cellular, LocalSend can't connect them. There's a longer comparison in OpenDrop vs LocalSend.

OpenDrop is the app we make. It runs on iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows and Linux. How it handles iPhone to Android depends on the plan:

• Pro: sign in to the same OpenDrop account on both phones, with Google, Apple, Microsoft or email. On the same Wi-Fi they find each other automatically over mDNS and send directly at full speed, in original quality. On different networks, for example one phone on cellular, the transfer goes over the faster Pro relay, with a direct peer-to-peer link as a backup. With no Wi-Fi or internet at all, the two phones can send over Bluetooth Low Energy. There is no file size cap.
• Free: no account needed, but no phone-to-phone transfers. Each phone pairs with a Windows or Linux computer by scanning its QR code. Send from the iPhone to the computer, then pick the file up on the Android phone, or the other way round. On the same Wi-Fi this runs at full speed. Away from your Wi-Fi, Free transfers go peer-to-peer or through the shared relay. They are speed-limited and move in resumable 5 MB pieces, and relay transfers count against a weekly allowance. There is no file size cap.

OpenDrop encrypts file contents on the sending device before they leave it. When a transfer goes through a relay, the relay carries the contents only in encrypted form, but it can see details such as file names, sizes and device names, which it needs to route the transfer. The other apps here also encrypt in transit.

SHAREit and Xender are popular in some regions. Both are ad-supported, so check the permissions they ask for and their privacy policies before you install them.

A Practical Setup for iPhone-Android Transfers

The right method depends on how often you move files and how big they are.

• An occasional photo or document: a messaging app or cloud drive is fine. Use WhatsApp's document option or Telegram's send-as-file option when quality matters.
• Your Android phone supports Quick Share with AirDrop: use it for nearby transfers. Nothing to install.
• Regular transfers at home, no account: LocalSend on both phones, or OpenDrop Free with both phones paired to your computer.
• Phones on different networks, or no Wi-Fi at all: OpenDrop Pro on both phones, signed in to the same account. It picks the route for you: Wi-Fi when both phones are on it, the Pro relay or peer-to-peer over the internet, and Bluetooth when there is no network.
• Large videos: transfer on the same Wi-Fi when you can. A local transfer skips your internet upload entirely, which is the slowest part of any cloud or relay route.