AirDrop Is Coming to More Android Phones This Year.
Last November, Google announced that it had successfully integrated Apple’s AirDrop with Quick Share on Pixel 10 phones , allowing them to easily share photos and files between iPhones, iPads, and Macs. The feature was intuitive, and as my colleague Jake Peterson put it, it worked so seamlessly that it felt like Quick Share and AirDrop were “designed this way from the start.” But for other Android users, things remained the same, resulting in awkward messages and emails for sharing files between iOS and Android. Now, however, Google has confirmed that it is working to bring AirDrop to other Android phones, including those it doesn’t manufacture. At an event attended by Android Authority , Android VP of Engineering Eric Kay said, “We launched AirDrop compatibility last year. In 2026, we’re going to expand it to many more devices.”
To some extent, we saw this coming. While many Pixel-exclusive features are implemented through a dedicated system component, Google added AirDrop compatibility to the Pixel 10 by converting Quick Share from a system feature into a full-fledged app with its own APK file. This laid the groundwork for other Android phones to eventually gain AirDrop compatibility, as they can all use the app. For example, Nothing CEO Carl Pei stated in November that his team was “already exploring” adding AirDrop compatibility to Nothing phones, and chipmaker Qualcomm said it was “looking forward” to enabling the feature on Snapdragon—the processor typically used in Samsung Galaxy phones—in the “near future.”
It looks like we won’t be long before AirDrop arrives across the rest of Android. While Kay didn’t give a specific timeframe beyond 2026, he did say that Google is already “working with our partners to expand this feature to the rest of the ecosystem, and you should see some exciting announcements soon.” That’s all the official information, but I’ve reached out to Google for further comment and will update if I hear more details. In the meantime, we have a few possible dates for when we can expect this feature to be announced.
The announcement will likely take place at Samsung’s next Unpacked event, where the company is expected to unveil the S26 line of phones. Rumors suggest this will take place on February 25, and it’s not uncommon for Google to appear at Unpacked to discuss new Android features that the new phones will be able to utilize. Alternatively, Google could delay the announcement until the next Google I/O event, likely in May. Or, the company could simply announce the new feature online, without the fanfare of an official event.
Either way, I’m looking forward to it. I take a lot of photos on my phone for this job, and while transferring them from my personal iPhone to my work Mac is usually no problem, transferring them from an Android phone I might be reviewing can be much more challenging. As someone who currently has an Android tablet, iPhone, MacBook, and Windows PC within five feet of me, I think anything that helps unify these ecosystems is a good move.