As spotted by Esper‘s Mishaal Rahman (via Twitter), there is a new Nearby Share feature coming to Android. This feature was seen in the most recent version of the Google Play Services app, though currently dormant.
Nearby Sharing will now have an option called “Your Devices”, which lists devices within your immediate vicinity that also belong to the same Google Account. You can then transfer a file directly to the receiving device by clicking this button.
Nearby Share’s “self-share” mode will let you quickly share files to other devices signed into the same Google account without needing to approve the share.
This hasn’t rolled out yet from what I can see, but it’s present in the latest version of Google Play Services. pic.twitter.com/wdtxoiE2oz
— Mishaal Rahman (@MishaalRahman) April 19, 2022
Nearby Sharing lets Android and Chromebook users send files, photos and videos to nearby devices. However, there is one minor problem when you send files to other devices. In its current state, you are required to accept a confirmation prompt on the receiving device despite both being having the same Google account logged in.
Although the feature has not yet been made public, due to its close proximity to Google I/O next year, it’s possible that the feature will be available around the same date.