How to send files from Android to iPhone
Last updated: July 29, 2026
Every phone platform has a fast, elegant way to send a file to another phone — of the same brand. AirDrop is excellent between Apple devices. Quick Share is excellent between Android devices. Neither will talk to the other, and there is no sign that will ever change.
So when an Android user needs to hand a video to someone with an iPhone, they usually fall back to a messaging app, which quietly recompresses it into a blurry, low-bitrate copy. This guide covers a better option that works in both directions, keeps the original file untouched, and needs nothing installed.
Why the built-in options do not cross over
- AirDrop is built on Apple's own combination of Bluetooth for discovery and a private Wi-Fi link for transfer. There is no client for Android, and the protocol is not open.
- Quick Share (formerly Nearby Share) is the Android equivalent, tied to Google Play services. iPhones do not run it.
- Messaging apps work, but almost all of them recompress photos and video by default. A 4K clip can arrive as a fraction of its original resolution and bitrate. Even "send as document" modes usually cap file size.
- Email stops at roughly 25 MB.
- Bluetooth between the two platforms is effectively not an option for files, and would be painfully slow even if it were.
The browser method
Both phones have a web browser, and browsers on both platforms support the same peer-to-peer connection technology. That is the common ground.
- On the sending phone, open sharebetweendevices.com and tap Send.
- Pick the photos, videos or files. Selecting several at once is fine.
- A QR code and a short PIN appear.
- On the receiving phone, point the camera at the QR code — both iOS and Android open links straight from the camera app — or open the same site and type the PIN.
- The receiving phone shows what is arriving and its size, then downloads it directly from the other phone.
The files go phone to phone. Nothing is uploaded to a server and nothing is stored anywhere afterwards.
Saving on each platform
The two platforms differ in the last step, which is worth knowing so nothing surprises you.
Receiving on Android
The file downloads the way any browser download does — straight into the Downloads folder, with a notification. Photos and videos will not appear in the gallery automatically; open Downloads, or move them into the camera folder if you want them in the gallery timeline.
One Android quirk: Chrome asks permission the first time a page wants to save more than one file automatically. If you are receiving several files and only the first one lands, look for that prompt, or check Site settings → Automatic downloads.
Receiving on iPhone
iOS will not write a file to storage without a deliberate tap, so when the transfer completes you get a Save button. Tapping it opens the standard share sheet: choose Save Image or Save Video to send media to Photos, or Save to Files for documents. If several files arrived together, they are offered as one share sheet, so a single tap saves the batch.
Quality: what actually stays intact
This is the main reason to avoid messaging apps for anything you care about. A browser transfer moves the file as bytes — it does not decode, re-encode, resize or strip anything. What arrives is bit-for-bit what left, verified with a checksum when the transfer completes.
Two format notes for Android users receiving from an iPhone:
- HEIC photos. Modern Android handles HEIC fine; older versions and some gallery apps do not. If the recipient cannot open them, ask the sender to set Settings → Camera → Formats → Most Compatible, which switches the camera to JPEG.
- HEVC video. Same story. Most current Android phones play H.265 without trouble; older devices may need the sender to record in H.264.
Going the other way, Android's default JPEG and H.264 output opens on any iPhone without special handling.
Sending many files at once
You can select multiple files in one go. The receiving side sees the full list up front with each file's size, and they arrive one after another with a running progress indicator. On iPhone the whole batch is saved with one tap at the end.
For a large set of photos, it is often easier to zip them first on a computer — but phone to phone, sending them as a batch avoids the zip step entirely.
Speed, and how to make it fast
Put both phones on the same Wi-Fi network. The transfer then runs at local network speed and never touches your internet connection, which for a 1 GB video means tens of seconds rather than many minutes.
If the phones are on mobile data, or on a guest Wi-Fi network that isolates devices from each other, the transfer falls back to a relay and is limited by upload bandwidth. The full explanation, and the fixes, are in why file transfers are slow.
A useful trick when there is no shared network: turn on the personal hotspot on one phone and connect the other to it. That gives you a private local network between just those two devices, and the transfer runs at full speed without using any mobile data, since the traffic never leaves the hotspot.
Common problems
- The QR code will not scan. Turn up the screen brightness on the sending phone and hold the camera 15 to 20 cm away. Or just type the PIN.
- The transfer stalls when the screen locks. Both phones suspend background tabs. Keep the browser in the foreground on both sides until it finishes.
- It connects but crawls. Check whether either phone is on mobile data rather than the shared Wi-Fi.
- Nothing happens after scanning. The link expired — sessions are deliberately short-lived. Start a new one.
More symptoms in the troubleshooting guide.
Send a file between your phones — no app on either side.