TL;DR
- Android may soon support sharing not just contacts, but also files, by tapping two phones together.
- Evidence of the feature spans across Samsung’s One UI 9, Google Play Services, and Android 17 system-level code.
- All signs point to a wider rollout that could bring this feature to many Android devices, not just Samsung phones.
Quick Share could be getting an even bigger update than we previously thought, bringing it on par with Apple’s AirDrop. This isn’t just based on a single discovery. It’s something we’ve been tracking across multiple teardowns over the past few months, and all signs now point to a broader Android-wide feature in the works.
Back in September 2025, we spotted early signs of NFC-based file sharing in One UI 8.5. The feature showed up under an experimental Labs section with animations suggesting you could bring two devices close together to transfer files. At the time, it looked like a Samsung-only experiment. But then things went quiet.
Now, in leaked builds of One UI 9, we’ve found a clearer version of the feature called “Tap to share.” Its description is simple: “Just hold the top of your phone close to the device, and the files will be sent.”
We also found strings like:
Code
Copy TextRequesting to %1$sSent to %1$sTap your phone with someone
All these strongly suggest Samsung is actively developing a tap-based file transfer system that uses NFC. But that’s not the whole story. It looks like Tap to share will not be a Samsung exclusive and is something Android phones may be able to enjoy widely.
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In November 2025, we discovered a separate feature inside Google Play Services that allows two devices to exchange contact information by simply bringing them close together, similar to Apple’s NameDrop.
Internally, this feature referenced something called “Gesture Exchange” and seemed limited to contact sharing. But now, the Quick Share app in One UI 9 also references Gesture Exchange, suggesting that it’s not just for contacts but can also be used to initiate file transfers.
AssembleDebug / Android Authority
Gesture Exchange references in One UI 9
In other words, NFC may simply act as the trigger, while Quick Share handles the actual transfer.
And it goes even deeper…
In Android 17 beta and Canary builds, we’ve been seeing references to a system-level service called “TapToShare.” This sits at the Android OS level, likely powered in part by Google Play Services. That means the feature may not be tied to one brand.
AssembleDebug / Android Authority
Tap to share references in Android 17
When you connect the dots, a clear picture starts to emerge.
It looks like Samsung and Google are building tap-based sharing into Quick Share. It’s possible that both companies are working together on this, as they’ve done in the past. For you, it means Quick Share on Android could finally support an AirDrop-like tap-to-share experience that could work across multiple devices and brands.
We’ll obviously have to wait and see when this arrives, but given that we’re spotting clues in One UI 9, it would make sense for Google to announce it alongside the stable Android 17 release. Who knows, Samsung devices might even be the first to get it. We’ll keep a close eye on how things develop over the next few months.
⚠️ An APK teardown helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release.
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