How to send large files between iPhone and Android (2026)

For a decade the answer to “how do I get this video to my friend's Android phone” was a shrug and a cloud link. AirDrop stopped at Apple's edge; Quick Share stopped at Google's. In 2026 that finally changed — but the change comes with enough conditions that it's worth knowing when it applies before you stand in a kitchen for ten minutes watching two phones fail to see each other.

The four routes, and the catch in each

1. Quick Share and AirDrop now talk to each other

Google has rolled out interoperability between Quick Share and AirDrop on supported Android devices. It is genuinely the best option when it applies: direct device-to-device, full quality, nothing uploaded to anyone's server, no size ceiling. The conditions are the whole story, though:

1. Both phones in the room. This is a Bluetooth-plus-Wi-Fi handshake, so it needs proximity for the entire transfer — a 4 GB video means both of you standing there for the duration.
2. Supported Android hardware. The rollout started with recent Pixel devices and is spreading. If your phone is a few years old, it may simply never appear.
3. The iPhone must be discoverable. On the iPhone: Settings → General → AirDrop → Everyone for 10 Minutes. The default (Contacts Only) will not find an Android device, and this is the step that fails silently in ninety percent of the “it doesn't work” cases.
4. Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and Location all on, on both phones. Turning Bluetooth off in Control Centre rather than in Settings can also leave it half-disabled.

2. WhatsApp: fine for files, terrible for media

WhatsApp has two completely different size behaviours and the app does almost nothing to tell you which one you're using. Attach through the photo/video picker and your file is recompressed and capped around 16 MB. Attach the same file through Document and it goes up to 2 GB, untouched.

The Document route is the single highest-value trick in cross-platform sharing and almost nobody uses it. We went deeper on both limits in how to send a file that's too big for WhatsApp.

3. iCloud and Google Drive links

Both work across platforms, and both drag their own ecosystem along. iCloud Mail Drop handles up to 5 GB but the link expires after 30 days, so it's a delivery mechanism, not a place to keep anything. Google Drive has no practical size problem and a serious permission problem: the sharing setting defaults to restricted, which is why the recipient so often lands on a “Request access” screen while the link works perfectly for you.

4. A plain link: the one that doesn't care which phone anyone has

Every method above depends on something outside your control — the other person's hardware, their app, their account, or their physical location. A public link depends on one thing that is true of every phone ever made: it has a browser.

• No proximity. Send it across the table or across an ocean; it's the same link.
• No app and no account for the person receiving it. They tap, it opens.
• No recompression. The file they get is the file you uploaded.
• Send it to ten people without ten transfers — paste the same URL.

This is what Link in Seconds does: drop the photo or video in and get a link that opens in Safari, Chrome, or whatever the other person is using — with a QR code, so you can also just hold your screen up and let them scan it.

The honest limit: a link service caps how big any single file can be, where Quick Share doesn't. If you're moving a 20 GB video archive and you're both in the same room, use Quick Share. For everything else — which is most things — the link wins because it removes every condition.

Which one should you use?

Quick answers