The first time you open the Nearby Share page, you'll be asked to turn it on. You care in complete control of your privacy. If Nearby Share isn't listed as an option, you don't have the feature yet, and you'll need to sporadically keep checking. On your phone, open the Settings app and select Google > Device connections > Nearby share. It will simply appear when it's added to your device. There isn't an update you need to install or anything you can do on your end at all. How to set up Nearby Share on an Android phone or tabletīefore you'll see Nearby Share as a sharing option, you'll need to enable it. If Nearby Share shows up as an option, congrats! If not, you'll need to wait a bit longer. Google has plans to turn on Nearby Share file transfers between Android and Chrome OS, but for now, it's limited to sharing between Android phones and tablets.

Google is adding Nearby Share to its own Pixel and Samsung phones first, and the feature will eventually come to all phones running Android 6.0 and above. You can check to see if the feature has been added to your device by following the instructions listed below. Which phones does Nearby Share work with right now?Īs is typically the case with new Android features, Google is slowly rolling out Nearby Share, so it may take some time before it will show up on your phone. You can follow step-by-step with the video below. It works just like AirDrop, but you'll need to do a couple of things before you can start using it yourself.

Google announced the new feature in early August, and I've been able to test it out on a Pixel 4 XL and a Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus.

Airdrop from iphone