Google’s Nearby Share can now send to multiple recipients at once

Where once Nearby Share was a half-solution to a real weak spot in Google’s ecosystem, it is now a viable solution for moving files in a simple, easy way from device to device. Google is even bringing Neaby Share to Chrome for Windows as well, further extending the reach of this valuable, useful feature. Sure, I used to casually ignore Nearby Share and look for other ways of moving files around. These days, I use it pretty frequently.

One weak spot

One thing Nearby Share still struggles with, however, is the ability to send out a file to multiple recipients. As it stands right now, if I needed to send out a photo to a few people in the office, I’d have to pull up Nearby Share, select the person I want to send to, and then repeat the entire process again as many times as needed to simply send the same file to the next person. It’s not optimal.

Google says an update is rolling out to Nearby Share that should allow for a sort of multi-select option when you go to send a file. So, instead of selecting the receiving device and ending the session, Nearby Share will allow for the selection of multiple endpoints for your sent file.

Though the lack of this feature has been what I’d consider a small inconvenience, the addition is very welcome. As Nearby Share continues to expand and get more frictionless to use on a daily basis, I can see it becoming a thing that gets used in this way quite often. As people return to work and office spaces, having the ability to quickly dole out files on a local level is a handy trick to have in the pocket when needed.

We’re not sure if or when this feature will come to Chromebooks at this point. As recipients, Chromebooks are obviously included here. I could queue up a photo and send it to multiple Chromebooks with this new addition right now. As a test, I did that exact thing and it worked without any issues at all. For Chromebooks to send to multiple other devices at once, however, we don’t have a firm date on that roll out. With the current interface, it wouldn’t take much work to allow users to select multiple contacts, but the backend work would clearly need to be done. Hopefully we’ll see it arrive in a future version of Chrome OS.