Microsoft enables greater synergy between a Windows PC and a smartphone, allowing users to reply to text messages, receive and make calls, and check phone notifications right from their PC. The Phone Link app for PC, which syncs Android and iPhone phones with Windows, also allows users to share files between devices. Now, Windows is making file sharing from your PC to Android more streamlined.
Windows Shared Feature
As part of the new Windows Insider Preview, Microsoft is rolling out the ability to quickly share content to an Android phone from a sharing window on a Windows PC. With the feature, clicking share on a file will now bring up a quick share window that will show the user's Android phone that has been paired with the computer.
Paired Android phones are displayed in the sharing window
Photo credit: Microsoft
According to Microsoft, users must have their smartphone paired to their Windows PC using the Windows Link app on Android and Phone Link on their PC for the feature to work. Only paired Android smartphones will show up in the sharing window, and there's no indication yet if the feature will roll out to the iPhone.
Currently, right-clicking a file in Windows and selecting Share opens the share window with options to quickly send the file to your email contacts or share it using Nearby Share or other apps .
The feature was announced as part of the updates that are introduced to the beta channel with Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22635.3785. These features may take some time to become widely available to all Windows 11 users.
Windows 11 preview
Other improvements being tested with the preview include tweaks to the Windows Spotlight feature, as well as other fixes for known issues. The update will make it easier for users to change images and engage with the Windows Spotlight experience on the desktop.
Windows allows users to share files between Android devices and PCs using the cross-device copy and paste feature in the Phone Link app. The feature, however, is only available on Surface Duo and select Samsung, Honor, Oppo and Asus devices.
Last month, a report from Windows Central had claimed that the Windows Phone Link app would soon get a new optical character recognition (OCR) feature that would allow users to copy text from images.
