Google's Nearby Share could finally become the AirDrop competitor it was always meant to be

Self Share has been found in the latest Google Play Services release, and it won't require approval

Despite being a useful feature, Nearby Share has not become the AirDrop competitor in the Android and Google ecosystem many of us hoped for. The big G has not given up on the feature, though, and updated it with group sharing support last year to further increase its usefulness. Now, the company seems to be on the verge of rolling out another nifty improvement for Nearby Share to make sharing files between your own devices easier. Dubbed Self Share, the option was first found being tested in early January. While not rolled out yet, the feature is present in the latest version of Google Play Services.

Spotted by Esper's Mishaal Rahman, the upcoming Nearby Share feature will allow you to transfer files between devices logged into the same Google account without having to approve the share first. The Device Visibility option in Nearby Share will gain a new Your Devices section for this. This is exactly how AirDrop works in Apple's ecosystem when sharing files between devices that are using the same Apple ID. There's no additional confirmation required to complete the transfer process.

Right now, even when sharing files between two of your devices that are logged into the same Google account, you need to approve the share on the recipient device to start the file transfer process. This additional step prevents the entire file sharing process from being completely seamless. Apart from files and photos, you can also use Nearby Share to share apps installed on your handset with other Android devices.

Since the feature has already been found in the latest version of Google Play Services, Google could be on the verge of making an official announcement and rolling out Self Share sooner than later. It's possible that the company is planning to officially reveal it during Google I/O 2022.