I think it’s fair to say one of the biggest surprises for Android users last year was Google’s announcement that Android’s Quick Share now works with Apple’s popular AirDrop feature on the Pixel 10 series. Suddenly, sharing files and photos between Pixel phones and iPhones became much easier.
When the Pixel 10 lineup launched last summer, I don’t think anyone predicted that one of its standout features would become AirDrop interoperability months later — but here we are.
Given how fiercely Apple guards its ecosystem, getting Quick Share to play nicely with AirDrop was an extremely impressive move from Google. The catch, though, is that the feature is currently exclusive to the Pixel 10 series, leaving other Android users on the outside looking in.
The good news? That might finally be about to change.
At a press briefing at Google’s Taipei office that Android Authority recently attended, Eric Kay, Android’s Vice President of Engineering, confirmed that AirDrop interoperability will expand to more Android devices in 2026.
“We spent a lot of time and energy to make sure that we could build something that was compatible not only with iPhone but iPads and MacBooks,” Kay said. “Now that we’ve proven it out, we’re working with our partners to expand it into the rest of the ecosystem, and you should see some exciting announcements coming very soon.”
Quick Share and AirDrop work seamlessly together
Qualcomm and Nothing have both confirmed AirDrop support is in the works
Right now, if you want to receive a file from an iPhone using AirDrop on a Pixel 10, you’ll need to set Quick Share’s visibility to “Everyone for 10 minutes” and make sure it’s in receive mode. Once that’s done, your Pixel should show up on the iPhone’s AirDrop screen.
Of course, it works the other way around, too. If you’re sending a file from Quick Share to AirDrop, the iPhone, iPad, or Mac user on the other end needs to set their AirDrop visibility to “Everyone for 10 minutes.” After that, their device should appear in your Quick Share menu, and you can share away.
Given how convenient this cooperation is for sharing files between Android and iOS, having it locked to just the Pixel 10 series isn’t exactly ideal, so the fact that it’s expanding to more Android devices soon is very welcome. However, the writing has been on the wall for quite some time that this would happen.
In November, when Google first launched AirDrop support on the Pixel 10, Qualcomm quickly indicated it wanted to bring the feature to Android phones with its Snapdragon chips, and Nothing also confirmed it was working to add AirDrop support to its devices as soon as possible, too.
There’s still no exact timeline for when we’ll finally see Quick Share work with AirDrop on all Android devices, but with Eric Kay saying announcements are “coming very soon,” hopefully that means we’ll potentially see it in the next couple of months. As a Galaxy S25+ user, I’m especially excited to finally be able to use Quick Share with AirDrop to quickly transfer photos and files to my MacBook.
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