Quick Share could get AirDrop-like limitation for better security

A few months ago, Google made Quick Share on select Android phones compatible with Apple’s AirDrop. That compatibility could soon extend to Galaxy phones and tablets. Ahead of the feature’s wider arrival, Quick Share may also gain an AirDrop-like limitation designed to improve security.

A report from Android Authority indicates that Google has made a significant change to Quick Share on Pixel 10 devices by removing the “Everyone” mode in the privacy settings. Pixel phones now offer three sharing options for Quick Share: Contacts, Everyone for 10 Minutes, and Your Devices. As a result, users can no longer keep Quick Share permanently open to everyone nearby.

This appears to be a server-side change affecting Pixel devices running the beta version of Google Play Services v26.06.31. The limitation mirrors AirDrop’s behavior, which restricts the Everyone option to a maximum of ten minutes.

Currently, Galaxy phones still allow Quick Share to remain open to everyone without a time limit. Users can enable this by turning off the “Only for 10 Minutes” option in Quick Share’s settings. However, as Samsung moves toward Quick Share's compatibility with AirDrop, the company may remove this option to address potential privacy and security concerns.

When Google announced Quick Share’s compatibility with AirDrop in late 2025, reports indicated that Apple and Google had not formally collaborated on interoperability between their wireless file-sharing systems. Instead, Google appears to have reverse engineered aspects of AirDrop to enable compatibility with Quick Share.

If Apple chose to break that compatibility, it could theoretically do so through a software update. However, such a move seems unlikely given increasing regulatory pressure from the European Union to make data transfers more open, allowing users to switch devices and share information more easily across platforms.

As a result, Google may be introducing this new limitation to Quick Share to reduce potential security or privacy concerns that Apple could use as an excuse to restrict the interoperability. Google could work with Samsung to extend AirDrop compatibility to Quick Share on Galaxy devices via One UI 8.5 or One UI 9 later this year.