The new ‘Nearby Share’ feature for Chromebooks is apparently getting an update already. Discovered by Dinsan of Chrome Story, something called “Self Share” is being added to allow you to send stuff to yourself (aptly named, wouldn’t you agree?)
Normally, Nearby Share looks for other devices so you can send documents, images, and other content to a friend, co-worker, or an acquaintance near your physical location, but this new feature will let you send these items to other devices that you own, have your Google Account signed in on them and are nearby. Think of this as sending a quick photo to your Chromebook from your phone (outside of Phone Hub’s Camera Roll tool that’s coming soon), for example.
This could save you time when snapping a photo and sending it to your laptop, phone, or another computing device in your home, workplace, or any other contained geographic circumstance without having to open Google Photos and download it again.
Nearby Sharing Self Share:
Enables seamless sharing between a user’s own devices.
Chromium Gerrit
For now, Nearby Self Share will start as a Chrome OS Canary developer flag before it’s fully rolled out, and is a part of a much larger plan for Google to offer greater and more polished interconnectivity between its hardware and software products in the same way that Apple has done for years.
If you enable the flag, or if you wait until the feature becomes available, a new “Send to Your Devices” menu option will appear once you press “Nearby Share” on the Chrome OS Share Sheet. I’m almost certain that most people – myself included – will end up using Self Share much more often than standard nearby sharing, and I’m honestly just so glad to see this coming to the masses as I perform such an action several times per day.
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