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It would be nice to have an AirDrop client for Microsoft Windows. Does anyone know if such a program exists as a shipping product or an open source work-in-progress?

I'm aware that there are many other file sync options, but I'm looking for something that works with Apple's implementation from the Windows OS.

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  • I don't think so. It's a peer-to-peer encrypted connection that only works on Lion-to-Lion transfer. If they don't support Snow Leopard (for example), I doubt they'll support Windows.
    – user479
    Commented Jul 23, 2011 at 6:53
  • From what I know, Air Drop is built on top of the Wi-Fi Direct protocol. This might help you in your googling attempts but i'm unsure as to how successful you might be. For those who don't know, Wi-Fi Direct is a hardware feature and that's why apple is limiting airdrop to newer macs only
    – Alexander
    Commented Jul 25, 2011 at 5:44
  • I don't think it uses the WiFi direct standard, it is peer 2 peer, but I'm pretty sure I read somewhere it's not WiFi Direct
    – Jonathan.
    Commented Jul 27, 2011 at 17:54
  • I came here as I needed to get some files from my Windows PC to my iPad Pro quickly. I found I already had the simplest solution to hand - Pushbullet. I believe AirDroid also has an iOS client.
    – paradroid
    Commented Feb 20, 2018 at 19:11
  • I came here as I needed to get photos from my iPhone to Windows laptop and I didn't have a cable. I already had OneDrive setup and synced to a folder, so I got the OneDrive app on my phone and was very easy to select the photo in the Photos app and 'share' it with the OneDrive app. The photo was on my laptop within 60 seconds of thinking about OneDrive.
    – Q---ten
    Commented Jul 31, 2020 at 6:47

12 Answers 12

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No, I don't believe you can. Apple advertise AirDrop as: "AirDrop, a remarkably simple way to copy files wirelessly from one Mac to another with no setup;" . Key part of that sentence being "from one Mac to another" - Second bullet point: http://www.apple.com/uk/pr/library/2011/02/24Apple-Releases-Developer-Preview-of-Mac-OS-X-Lion.html. It's highly unlikely Apple would open this feature up to Windows or Linux because it's a selling point for them in new Macs running Lion.

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  • 6
    And yet airplay which is only for iOS devices to aTV and 3rd party speakers, has clients for Macs, PCs and iOS devices themselves.
    – Jonathan.
    Commented Jul 27, 2011 at 17:54
  • That's an interesting point Jonathan, I wasn't aware of that! But given Apple's wording in the AirDrop blurb I think it's unlikely the same would happen. Not impossible, of course. Jailbreak, anybody?
    – Bendihossan
    Commented Jul 27, 2011 at 18:05
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    I meant to say those extra clients are 3rd party and without documentation from Apple. I think if it uses the network it is easier to duplicate the functionality because the communications can be intercepted.
    – Jonathan.
    Commented Jul 27, 2011 at 18:07
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    It would be detrimental to sales of the iOS devices that support Airplay if they didn;t support it on a subset of customers setups. After all, they sell far more iOS devices than Macs, and therefore have a Windows market for those devices. AirDrop is Mac to Mac, and as such not supporting Windows isn't detrimental to the market in the same way. Not having Win Airplay would reduce iOS sales. Not having Win Airdrop will not reduce Mac sales.
    – stuffe
    Commented Sep 14, 2011 at 9:53
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    This is like saying building PC is impossible because x86 PC is proprietary to IBM. Apple may not support Airdrop for Windows, but what about thirdparties?
    – est
    Commented Oct 12, 2014 at 6:03
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As other answers have said there's currently nothing for non-Apple OSes which can talk to Apple's AirDrop.

However there is Snapdrop which offers similar functionality to AirDrop via a cross-platform and open source web app. It does require the sending and receiving devices to be connected to the same LAN (rather than creating an ad-hoc wireless network like AirDrop) and uses WebRTC (with a fall back to WebSockets) for peer-to-peer communication directly between them.

More technical details about it can be found on the GitHub page.

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I install Pidgin on my Windows machines and enable its Bonjour account, which enables file transfers - including with Macs running iChat.

AirDrop is Lion-only, but iChat file transfer works 10.4+.

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No, AirDrop for Win does not exist. I think you could use Dropbox with "Enable LAN Sync" option enabled. It will sync your files over local network. If you want to use it at home and in the office, you also might turn on "Selective Sync" to avoid large files transfer over the internet.

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You can try Transfer on LAN. You can transfer files with machines running on Windows, Mac and Linux because it uses Java. It needs no configuration and it's open source.

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  • Is this an actual AirDrop client - if not could you describe if it sets up a zero configuration mesh network (encrypted or not) or is just a UI for file sharing?
    – bmike ♦
    Commented Dec 1, 2012 at 19:22
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Try Filedrop. It works for both win and mac computers. www.filedropme.com

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  • Welcome to Ask Different! Answers on Ask Different need to be more than just a link. It's okay to include a link, but please summarize or excerpt it in the answer. The idea is to make the answer stand alone. Please take a look at the FAQs for more info.
    – gentmatt
    Commented Sep 27, 2012 at 6:09
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    Doesn't answer the question. Not AirDrop compatible.
    – Chris W. Rea
    Commented Sep 22, 2013 at 16:31
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An alternative to SnapDrop is ShareDrop. Like SnapDrop, it runs on your browser. I believe these two websites only work if you're connected to the same WiFi network/router, which is a possibly disadvantage over AirDrop. However, it works cross-platform.

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If you're a Windows user looking for some of the same functionality as AirDrop, check out Flik. Through it, you can share all sorts of files plus message between friends, like iMessage. Everything happens over wi-fi/internal network.

Also, if you're on a mixed network with Windows and OS X users, those on Macs can run Flik from within Parallels or VMware Fusion.

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You might want to try Dropbox. It works with almost all internet-compatible operating systems, even iOS and android. You'll get 2 GB free storage space for free and you can buy additional storage.

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    DropBox is great, but it really offers a different feature set than AirDrop.
    – Daniel ♦
    Commented Nov 9, 2011 at 3:22
-2

I have a Mac and AirDrop is pretty good, but Windows laptops and PCs can just use peer-to-peer Bluetooth instead.

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    ...but only for small file transfers. Bluetooth tops out at around 2-3 Mbps; 802.11n will go to 600 Mbps.
    – josh3736
    Commented Jan 30, 2012 at 21:01
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There's Bump. its like airdrop, but you have to bump the phone to the keyboard. www.bu.mp

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easy way it use iCloud - it's simple and fast. Only need to set it up on a computer and share your screen to you account.

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    How does this answer the question asked?
    – nohillside ♦
    Commented Aug 5, 2014 at 20:11

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