Google’s answer to Apple’s AirDrop called Nearby Share may come to Windows, macOS and other platforms

It has been found out that Nearby Share could come to Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chrome OS in addition to Android.

Google Pixel. (Google)

Google's answer to Apple's AirDrop feature, called Nearby Share, has already been hinted at in Android 11, indicating its arrival to several smartphones in the coming months. But it looks like this feature is supposed to work on other platforms as well as per a new report by 9to5Google. As the name suggests, Nearby Share lets you share photos, links and other files to other devices, working in a similar way as Apple iOS' AirDrop feature.

However, now, it has been found out that Nearby Share could come to Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chrome OS in addition to Android. The feature was first unearthed inside the ChromeOS Settings app by the Chromestory website. And like many other work-in-progress Chrome features, this also needs to be enabled with a flag in chrome://flags. The description states “Enables Nearby Sharing for sharing content between devices. – Mac, Windows, Linux, Chrome OS,” which is self explanatory.

Unfortunately, when we enable both the flag and the toggle in the Settings app, the feature doesn't seem to do anything for now. This also indicates that Google's Nearby Share is yet to reach the last stages and is still being worked upon.

It is not for sure in which Chrome version will this feature be enabled though.

Google's Nearby Share was spotted in Android 11's one of the developer versions back in March. When sharing files with Fast Share between two Pixel 4 devices, the operation completes successfully, but the UI on the device which receives the file states that it did not receive the file," read the Android 11 release notes at that time. Google will most likely release this feature first for its Pixel 4 series going by the release notes.