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10 best file sharing apps for Android
File sharing is a lot easier than it used to be. Internet speeds are a lot faster and devices are a lot more powerful with way more storage. It’s relatively easy to move even large files from one person to another. Android even has Nearby Share, a method for sharing files simply by being next to the person you want to share with. Still, there are some apps that can make it easy and we’ll go over those now. Here are the best file sharing apps for Android.
The best file sharing apps for Android:
Feem
Price: Free / $4.99-$9.99 per year
Feem is a simple and relatively easy file sharing app. Basically, you and the other person connect to the same Wi-Fi network and the app finds the two devices and passes the file between them. It works between phones, as well as between a phone and a computer. The app has a sender and receiver mode to make it pretty easy to determine who’s getting what.
The pro version adds some additional features and actually doesn’t cost all that much per year. It’s efficient and works for most people.
Price: Free
Email is one of the most popular ways to share files. It works for small stuff like the occasional document, photo, small video, and things like that. Most email services have limits on how big attachments can be, so you can’t transfer larger files. Still, it’s convenient since everybody has email.
Each email client has its own set of features, but sending attachments works the same in basically all of them. We have Gmail linked because it’s an easy recommendation, but there are a lot of email clients out there.
Cloud storage
Price: Free / Varies
Cloud storage is also among the most popular ways to share files. Unlike email, there’s no real size limit on cloud storage as long as you have enough space on your account to hold the file. This is how a lot of people share stuff. You simply upload the file to your cloud storage, give someone else the link, and they download it. There are a lot of options in this space as well, and most give you a decent amount of space.
Fun fact, you can simply sign up for all of them and get all the free space you can. In any case, this is more or less how it’s done these days so we obviously recommend it.
Imgur (and similar apps)
Price: Free / Varies
Imgur is an image sharing website where you upload images and send the links to other people so they can see them. This is a popular site for forums and Reddit, for folks to upload an image and share it with other people. You get what seems like unlimited storage, but the service only works for images.
There are other services that work like this as well. YouTube lets you upload almost any video you want and you can share it with people at any time. Apps like Amazon Photos and Google Photos backup your photo library so you can share and download them whenever you want.
InShare
Price: Free / $4.99
InShare works a lot like Feem. You and another person connect together and transfer files between your devices. The app has a few decent features, such as the ability to restart a download in progress if the connection becomes interrupted. Some other features in the app include a file browser, support for all Android phones, and support for 30 languages.
We also like that it’s not stuffed with a bunch of useless nonsense. It’s just there to help you share files. It worked just fine in our testing.
Send Anywhere
Price: Free / $4.99
Send Anywhere is another file sharing app that uses Wi-Fi Direct to move files without a full Internet connection. The app generates QR codes that the other person scans to connect both devices and transfer the file. It works with any file type so you don’t have to worry about that. The QR code can also be scanned by multiple people in case you want to share it with a few people at once.
The one drawback is the same as most Wi-Fi Direct sharing in that you have to be in the same room as the other person and connected to the same Wi-Fi. Some folks aren’t happy with the advertisements, but it’s otherwise a solid app.
Solid Explorer (and similar apps)
Price: Free trial / $2.99
Solid Explorer is a file browser and file browsers are a pretty decent way to share files. You simply select the file you want to send and then choose the app you want to send it through. This is usually how people get their files to cloud storage or to a message in a messaging app.
With some tinkering, you can use your Wi-Fi hotspot to connect another phone to yours and use a file browser to transfer files to the other phone, like it’s an off-site storage device. It’s a bit old-school, but it does work if you and your friends are old-school tech-savvy.
Torrents
Price: Free / Varies
Torrents are another old-school way of transferring files. It’s definitely doable on Android without too many problems. All you need is a torrent app, and we linked Flud on the button below, along with a little bit of patience. Torrents let you upload your file directly to another person via a magnet link and trackers.
It works a bit better if you have multiple people uploading and downloading, but it’ll do its job even if it’s a one-to-one transfer. You’ll have to learn how to make a torrent file, but it otherwise works just fine.
WhatsApp (and similar apps)
Price: Free / Varies
A lot of messaging apps let you transfer files these days. Virtually all of them let you share photos and most let you share videos as well. A smaller number lets you upload basically whatever you want. Some examples of this include Skype, WhatsApp, and Discord. Simply upload the file and the other people in your chat can download it.
There are usually file size limits, although that varies from app to app. For example, Discord has an 8MB limit unless you subscribe to Discord Nitro. Even though nobody really uses Skype anymore, it’s actually quite good for this type of usage as well. We have WhatsApp linked up because it’s the most popular.
Xender
Price: Free
Xender is yet another file transfer app that uses Wi-Fi Direct and, like most, it supports basically all types of files. It also works cross-platform with iOS, Android, PC/Mac, and even Tizen. At its core, it works very similarly to Send Anywhere, Feem, and other such file transfer apps. However, this one adds a few extras to make it a bit different.
It comes with an audio and video converter along with the ability to download videos from various social platforms. There are also games on there but they’re all kind of bad and we don’t recommend that part of the app.
If we missed any great file sharing apps, tell us about them in the comments. You can also click here to check out our latest Android app and game lists.