this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2026
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Through 2 things:
The answer is partly in the name, but there is no magic involved. Direct Share uses Wi-Fi Direct (also known as Wi-Fi P2P), which bypasses the middleman and connects the two devices directly to each other, potentially increasing the file transfer speed. However, it is only as fast as the slowest networking stack of the two connected devices. This is in contrast to almost all other solutions (like localsend) that rely on the two devices being connected to the same Wi-Fi network.
The other thing is deep integration with most file managers and desktop environments. For me personally, I believe that you should not need to open an app to send a file to your other device. You should be able to simply right-click on any file on your system, and there should be an option that says "Send to". It should not open the whole app. It should only open a mini window or a small window with only the necessary things you need to send the file, which is:
That's all.
For 2 that's neat to have, but how do you send the clipboard or something thats not in a file manager?
Well, I guess I would need to add an option in the app to share clipboard content.
You know what? You just gave me an idea, a very good idea. Sometimes there are things that are not in file managers, maybe in a particular app, maybe in a browser, and you just want to drag and drop it. I don't like the idea of opening the app, right-clicking on the corners of the window just to enable "keep this app on the top" so that you can drag and drop whatever you want.
Instead, what I would like to see is a keyboard shortcut where a small window opens that stays on top of all the other windows. That you can drag and drop anything to it, or maybe copy-paste anything into it. Maybe a photo, maybe a video, maybe anything. This would work for clipboard content, for video files from other apps that are not file managers.