Pairdrop very slow transfer speed. Is this normal?

User2288

I tried using pairdrop to transfer files via network to pc. Worked but 5MB file took 30 seconds. 15MB file took over a minute. That's very impractical. Network should allow waaay more than that.

My network speeds otherwise were perfectly fine. I tried it on snapdrop too but same issue. Used pixel 6a and thinkpad with 5Ghz wifi.

Is it this way for everyone? If so this is useless for file management.

Any other suggestions for wireless file transfer? I need it to work on an iphone too.

User2288

Bump.

Anyone else experience pairdrop / snapdrop to be slow like this?

Trena

User2288 peardrop isn’t especially slow for me. I use it to get stuff in and out of my Qubes system all the time (dell Inspiron), from all sorts of other devices. I have a pretty unstable network connection as well. It compares to airdrop between my iOS and Mac devices.

User2288

Eury
Thanks for the replies mate.

Trena
Ok, thank you.

Eury

LocalSend with an honorable mention to KDE Connect

I had had tens of gigabytes to move off of an iPad and was quite concerned about the file corruption issues that can occur when using iOS's native file manager to copy or move files to external storage.

I was too new to the recommendation of the 3rd party file manager for iOS and MacOS called FileBrowser.

I tried two recommendations LocalSend and KDE Connect. They are both availalable for multiple operating systems including Android and iOS. I stopped using KDE Connect early on because LocalSend has two features really useful to me that so far KDE Connect appears to lack: transfer speed and estimated time for the file transfer.

Despite the apparent lack of any mention of it in LocalSend's documentation, I can transfer files between iOS and Android either WiFi to Wifi or WiFi to Ethernet.

LocalSend appears to be a project actively worked on judging by the regular notifications of updates through Obtanium. A few months ago when LocalSend was several versions older, I had to first compress multiple folders in iOS into one prior to sending it; but maybe I was just too new to LocalSend to figure out how to send the folders individually. I've used LocalSend to send up to 12gb at once; it took several minutes before LocalSend was ready to transmit it to Android. Speaking in general, the transfer rate is usually 8-11 MB/s and am assuming the capabilities of my router are the bottleneck; the transfer speed using LocalSend is appreciably improved by connecting one of the two devices by ethernet.

Because it is such a chore to set up a lightning-based iOS device for an ethernet connection, I instead connect my Pixel phone via a Best Buy private label USB-C to Ethernet Adapter; I have been surprised to discover that some of their private label products have been of a good quality.

Here are links to what I referenced:

File corruption on copy to external storage
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/file-corruption-on-copy-to-external-storage.2235171/

FileBrowser
https://www.stratospherix.com

KDE Connect
https://invent.kde.org/network/kdeconnect-kde

LocalSend
https://github.com/localsend/localsend

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/best-buy-essentials-usb-c-to-ethernet-adapter-white/6523711.p?skuId=6523711
N.B. My model "Best Buy Platinum" seems to be discontinued at this time; hopefully this "Best Buy Essentials" model is as capable.

Eury

I use LocalSend regularly and am quite pleased with it. Here is a tip: Most of the time the direction of my file transfer is from the Pixel to the iOS device. Once the file transfer is underway, minimizing the LocalSend app in the iOS receiving device pauses the transfer; however, minimizing the app in the Android sending device does not interrupt the transfer meaning I can multitask and use the phone for other things.

Eury

There is also a project called Warpshare which, personally, I could not get to work. Judging by the notice currently at the top of the github listing, perhaps it is not active at this time.

https://github.com/moseoridev/WarpShare

Eury

If a vpn is in place on the Pixel, my experience is that two modifications have to be made in order for the sending and receiving device to discover each other via LocalSend.

1) Settings > Network & Ethernet > VPN > Block connections without vpn
Disable this for the duration of using LocalSend

2) Set the vpn connection status to disabled either by swiping down on the Pixel to view the notification screen or go into the vpn app.