Guide
Send a file from your phone to your laptop without a cable
Open a page in both browsers, read one short room code out loud, and send. No cable, no Bluetooth pairing, no app to install on either device, and the file is not uploaded to anyone's server. This works on Android and iPhone as well as on desktop.
How to do it
- On your laptop, open this page and pick the Send tab. A short room code appears, for example 4821.
- On your phone, open the same page in any browser and pick Receive.
- Type the four-character code from the laptop, then join the room.
- On the laptop, choose the file, or drag it onto the page.
- The phone receives it straight from the laptop's browser. On Android Chrome you will be asked to allow downloads once.
It works when the two devices are on different networks
Sending from a phone to a laptop on the same WiFi is the easy case: the two browsers find each other directly over the local network. When they are on different networks, or one of them is on mobile data, WebRTC falls back to a relay so the transfer still goes through. The relay forwards packets it has no key for, so the file stays encrypted end to end between the two devices.
Why not just use a cable, Bluetooth or cloud storage
All three work, and for a one-off file each is fine. The reasons people look for a browser instead are specific: a cable means finding the right adapter, and on a locked work laptop you may not have one. Bluetooth pairing fails often enough to be worth avoiding. Cloud storage means the file sits on somebody's computer until you delete it, which is a poor fit for a passport scan, a contract or anything you would rather not hand to a stranger's hard drive. This page does not create a server that could keep a copy of your file, because there is no endpoint here that accepts one.
Which method suits which case
| Cable | Bluetooth | Cloud drive | This page | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nothing to install | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Works across networks | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| File left on someone else's machine | No | No | Yes, until deleted | No |
| Needs an account | No | No | Yes | No |
| Good for very large files | Yes | Poorly | Yes | Yes, over a relayed link |
Where this is the wrong answer
- With no internet connection at all, nothing on this page works. A cable is the only option that needs no network.
- Some corporate networks block WebRTC. If the transfer never gets past connecting, that is why, and a cable or a cloud drive will serve you better.
- A very large file over a relayed link is slower than an upload to a datacentre. A relay is capped by the uplink of one shared server, while a datacentre can receive from you quickly and then push to the recipient down a fat pipe.
- The room code is four characters by default, so in principle someone could guess it and join the transfer. That is fine between two people in the same room. If the file is anything sensitive, tap the toggle on the send screen to use a 36-character id instead.
FAQ
- Can I transfer a file from my phone to my laptop with no internet?
- Only if both devices are on the same local network. PrivyDrop needs a network to introduce the two browsers to each other, even if the file itself never travels over the internet. For a genuinely offline transfer, use a cable.
- Does this work on iPhone?
- Yes, in Safari or Chrome. If your network blocks WebRTC, iOS is stricter than desktop about falling back, so a wired connection or a cloud drive is the safer bet on a locked-down network.
- Do I need to install an app?
- No. Both devices just open the page in a browser. There is no account, no pairing code and nothing left behind afterwards.
- Is the file uploaded anywhere?
- No. The backend has endpoints for opening a room, checking whether one exists and counting anonymous usage; none of them accepts a file, and none can tell you who is in a room. You can read the list yourself in backend/src/routes/api.ts, because the project is MIT licensed.
- What is the largest file I can send this way?
- We do not impose a limit. In practice the ceiling is the browser and your network rather than us, and a relayed transfer of tens of gigabytes will take a while because it consumes bandwidth we pay for.