NearShare speaks Google's Quick Share / Nearby Share wire protocol directly, so it interoperates with:
No cables, no cloud account, and no companion app on the phone -- just a shared WiFi network (or NearShare's own experimental Direct-mode hotspot) and a 4-digit PIN you confirm on both screens.
Discovery uses mDNS (python-zeroconf, which binds its own multicast sockets rather than talking to Avahi) plus an optional Bluetooth LE "wake up" beacon so an Android phone's share sheet notices this machine proactively. Every transfer is end-to-end encrypted (UKEY2 key exchange, then AES-256-CBC + HMAC-SHA256 per frame) and requires a manual PIN confirmation on both devices -- there is no persistent cross-device trust (no Google-account "paired key" support).
AFTER INSTALLING -- two commands
Bluetooth discovery and Direct mode need interfaces that snapd does not connect automatically. Run both, then start the app:
sudo snap connect nearshare:bluez sudo snap connect nearshare:network-manager
Without bluez the app still works, but your phone may only see this machine while the phone's own Quick Share screen is open. Without network-manager, Direct mode (the built-in hotspot for when there is no shared WiFi) is unavailable. Everything else -- discovery, sending, receiving -- works with no extra setup.
Optional: a Super+Shift+S shortcut to toggle visibility can be bound
from the app's own setup panel, or with nearshare install.
Right-click "Send with NearShare" in Files
Not available in the snap. Strict confinement forbids writing to ~/.local/share/nautilus, so no snap can install a Files extension. If you want right-click sharing, install the Debian package instead:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:dhiva-labs/apps sudo apt install nearshare
The .deb ships a system-wide Files extension and needs no per-user setup. Both builds are the same application otherwise.
Thank you for your report. Information you provided will help us investigate further.
There was an error while sending your report. Please try again later.
Snaps are applications packaged with all their dependencies to run on all popular Linux distributions from a single build. They update automatically and roll back gracefully.
Snaps are discoverable and installable from the Snap Store, an app store with an audience of millions.
On Arch Linux, snap can be installed from the Arch User Repository (AUR). The manual build process is the Arch-supported install method for AUR packages, and you’ll need the prerequisites installed before you can install any AUR package. You can then install snap with the following:
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/snapd.git
cd snapd
makepkg -si
Once installed, the systemd unit that manages the main snap communication socket needs to be enabled:
sudo systemctl enable --now snapd.socket
If AppArmor is enabled in your system, enable the service which loads AppArmor profiles for snaps:
sudo systemctl enable --now snapd.apparmor.service
To enable classic snap support, enter the following to create a symbolic link between /var/lib/snapd/snap and /snap:
sudo ln -s /var/lib/snapd/snap /snap
Either log out and back in again, or restart your system, to ensure snap’s paths are updated correctly.
To install NearShare, simply use the following command:
sudo snap install nearshare
Browse and find snaps from the convenience of your desktop using the snap store snap.
Interested to find out more about snaps? Want to publish your own application? Visit snapcraft.io now.