Yesterday I was at a coffee shop trying to send a video to a client , and We Chat just wouldn 't send it —I was so anxious . I 've messed this up before ; I used to na ively send product demos via We Chat , only for the client to receive a pixel ated mess , and I got complaints . I 've also gotten stuck on these transfer limits — just to send a few hundred meg abytes , I had to log into a cloud drive , upload , and download . It was slow , and I was always worried about my design drafts leaking . For those of us building personal brands and small teams , we shoot footage on our phones and need to edit immediately , or make proposals on the computer and need to review them right away . The wall between devices really holds us back .
What It Is + Who Is Using ItLocal Send is basically a cross -platform " Air Drop ." Whether we pair an iPhone with a Windows PC , or an Android with a Mac , as long as they 're on the same Wi -Fi , we can transfer files directly without compress ing the quality . My friend D afe i , an independent designer , has completely switched his studio to Local Send . Last Friday at his studio , he dragged a 2 GB asset pack from his Android phone directly to his Windows PC . It arrived in seconds — no data cable , no command line needed . The most reassuring part is that it 's open -source and doesn 't route through a server . Files fly directly between local devices . No middle man , so privacy is absolutely secure .
Rep licate Cost Money : $ 0 ( com pletely free and open -source )
Time : 5 minutes
Technical barrier : Zero code barrier —as long as we can connect to Wi -Fi , it works . No need to mess with " LAN IPs " or anything like that .
First step : Search " Local Send " in my phone 's app store or computer browser , click " Download / Install ", and once opened , it will automatically find other devices on the same Wi -Fi .
Just starting out : If I only use one computer and one phone , and occasionally send a photo , I wouldn 't worry about trying this right now . We Chat can scrape by , and I can install it when I 'm eventually driven crazy by a large file .
1 - 2 clients : If I 'm frequently shut t ling videos and design drafts between my phone and computer , I 'd suggest installing this immediately to say goodbye to We Chat compression and file size limits . Not everyone needs this tool , but if I do , it really saves me a ton of anxious waiting time .
Scaling up : If we 're a 1 - 5 person small team with mixed devices ( Apple , Android , Windows ), I 'd strongly suggest we all install it uniformly . Internal file transfers become fast and secure , without needing to set up various cloud drive shared folders .