Important
This repository is back in an experimental continuation state on main. Google has announced official compatibility between Quick Share and AirDrop, so this project may no longer be necessary for everyday use, but the codebase remains available.
CrossDrop is a partial implementation of Google's Quick Share in Flutter for macOS, iOS and Linux.
CrossDrop is based on NearDrop, a Swift implementation of Nearby Share for macOS.
Protocol documentation is available in the NearDrop repository.
The app lives in your menu bar and saves files to your downloads folder.
ℹ️ Getting CrossDrop to work on iOS has the least priority, first getting it to work on macOS and Linux is the goal.
Grab the latest build from the Releases page.
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Homebrew (once published to the tap):
brew install --cask Medformatik/tap/crossdrop
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Manual: download
CrossDrop-<version>-macos-universal.zip, unzip, and moveCrossDrop.appto/Applications.
Published release builds are signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple, so Gatekeeper opens them without warnings. Locally built (unsigned) apps require a right-click → Open, or xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine CrossDrop.app.
- AppImage: download
CrossDrop-<version>-linux-x86_64.AppImage, thenchmod +xit and run. - Tarball: download
CrossDrop-<version>-linux-x64.tar.gz, extract it, and run./CrossDrop.
No public distribution yet — build and run from source (see below).
Requires the Flutter SDK 3.44.2 or newer.
git clone https://github.com/Medformatik/CrossDrop.git
cd CrossDrop
flutter pub getRun in development:
flutter run -d macos # or: -d linuxBuild release binaries:
flutter build macos --release # → build/macos/Build/Products/Release/CrossDrop.app
flutter build linux --release # → build/linux/x64/release/bundle/
flutter build ios --release # requires an Apple Developer account for signingOn Linux, install the build toolchain first:
sudo apt-get install -y clang cmake ninja-build pkg-config libgtk-3-dev liblzma-dev- LAN only. Your Android device and your Mac need to be on the same network for this app to work. Google's implementation supports multiple mediums, including Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi hotspot, Bluetooth, some kind of 5G peer-to-peer connection, and even a WebRTC-based protocol that goes over the internet through Google servers. Wi-Fi direct isn't supported on macOS (Apple has their own, incompatible, AWDL thing, used in AirDrop). Bluetooth needs further reverse engineering.
- Visible to everyone on your network at all times while the app is running. Limited visibility requires talking to Google servers, and becoming temporarily visible requires listening for whatever triggers the "device nearby is sharing" notification.
Contributions are welcome! Please open an issue or a pull request.
CI (.github/workflows/ci.yml) formats, analyzes, and tests on every push and pull request, then compiles the macOS, Linux, and iOS apps. Pushing a v* tag triggers .github/workflows/release.yml, which builds a signed + notarized macOS app and packaged Linux artifacts (AppImage + tarball) and attaches them to a GitHub Release.
NearDrop is a Swift implementation of Nearby Share for macOS. It therefore only works on macOS. CrossDrop is a Flutter implementation of Nearby Share. It serves the same purpose, but works on more platforms. This way, Nearby Share can also be used on Linux and iOS.
While I am an Android developer, and I have looked into this, this is nigh-impossible. AirDrop uses AWDL, Apple's own proprietary take on peer-to-peer Wi-Fi. This works on top of 802.11 itself, the low-level Wi-Fi protocol, and thus can not be implemented without messing around with the Wi-Fi adapter drivers and raw packets and all that. It might be possible on Android, but it would at the very least require root and possibly a custom kernel. There is an open-source implementation of AWDL and AirDrop for Linux.