Google quietly fixed the biggest problem with Quick Share for Windows

Among the best instruments to switch recordsdata between your Android cellphone and your Home windows PC is Fast Share. It’s simple to arrange, simple to make use of, and transfers recordsdata actually shortly. Nonetheless, one main difficulty with the Fast Share for Home windows shopper is that it transfers recordsdata actually slowly in case your Home windows PC isn’t on the identical Wi-Fi community as your Android cellphone. No less than, that’s how issues was, as a result of Google quietly fastened this downside a while again.

When Google launched Fast Share for Home windows again in 2023, it confused that each your Android cellphone and your Home windows PC have to be linked to the identical community as a way to get the most effective file switch speeds. If not, then Fast Share would switch recordsdata over a Bluetooth connection, which is dramatically slower than a Wi-Fi connection. For instance, after I tried to switch a 5.4GB file from my Android cellphone to my Home windows PC over a Bluetooth connection, the switch price hovered round 60KB/s, that means it might take near a day to finish the switch.

In distinction, after I tried to switch the identical file over a Wi-Fi connection, the switch price shot as much as round 30MB/s on the low finish, chopping the switch time right down to only a few minutes.

Within the screenshot I posted above, you’ll discover that my Home windows PC isn’t linked to a Wi-Fi community in any respect, but it’s nonetheless receiving a file at ~30MB/s. I believed that was odd provided that Google’s personal help web page and the Fast Share for Home windows app itself nonetheless say that your Home windows and Android gadgets have to be linked to the identical community to get the most effective switch speeds, however that’s clearly not the case anymore. I don’t know precisely when this modified (model 1.0.1724.0 is the oldest I examined), however I’ve just lately seen that Fast Share for Home windows can obtain and ship recordsdata at fairly first rate speeds as long as your Home windows PC has Wi-Fi turned on. Your Home windows PC doesn’t even have to be linked to a Wi-Fi community in any respect, the truth is.

Whereas transferring recordsdata from two of my telephones (a Xiaomi 14T Professional and a OnePlus 12) to 2 of my Home windows PCs, I seen that my telephones started the switch over Bluetooth earlier than switching over to a Wi-Fi connection after a number of seconds. I knew this as a result of the switch price was initially 60-80KB/s however then sped as much as 30-40MB/s after my telephones disconnected themselves from my house Wi-Fi community and created a Wi-Fi hotspot. The hotspot my telephones created was named one thing like “DIRECT-XXXXX,” which suggests the connection was over Wi-Fi Direct. Nonetheless, I requested round and was informed that the Close by library doesn’t help Wi-Fi Direct but on Home windows, so I’m not fully certain what methodology of connection is used.

Regardless, this transformation solves one of many greatest issues with Fast Share for Home windows. If you’re on the go, it may be a trouble to get your Home windows PC linked to the identical Wi-Fi community as your Android cellphone, so Fast Share dropping that requirement makes it usable just about anyplace. Precisely how shortly recordsdata will really switch for you’ll rely in your precise atmosphere and the standard of your gadgets’ Wi-Fi playing cards. A file switch between my Xiaomi 14T Professional and my Samsung Galaxy Book5 Professional 360 hit upward of 90-110MB/s, although it normally hovered across the 30-40MB/s mark that I discussed earlier.

With this limitation now gone, the one different main difficulty with Fast Share for Home windows is its lack of ARM compatibility. Apparently, the Fast Share app itself really does work on ARM-based Copilot Plus PCs, however you at the moment need to manually switch the set up recordsdata from an x64 PC as a result of the installer crashes.