DroidHarbor

Receive files from Android on your desktop using the sharing built into every Android phone: no app to install on the phone, no cable, no cloud.

On the phone: Share → Quick Share → tap your computer. Full guide at eaceto.github.io/DroidHarbor.app. On the desktop: an accept dialog with a matching 4-digit code, then the files land in a folder you chose.

Current release: 1.0.0. Both directions work on real hardware (verified with a Pixel 8): receiving from Android's share sheet, and sending back to it: files, and text such as links, addresses and phone numbers. The macOS app (apps/macos) ships as a signed, notarized universal DMG; the Linux app (apps/linux) ships as an AppImage for x86_64 and aarch64.

No warranty. DroidHarbor is provided as is, without warranty of any kind (GPL sections 15–16). It moves your files over a protocol that can change underneath it: confirm that important transfers arrived intact, and never treat a transferred copy as your only copy.

Disclaimer. This project implements an unofficial, reverse-engineered protocol (Nearby Sharing, marketed as "Quick Share") and may stop working without notice after any Play Services update. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google. DroidHarbor exists to let a desktop interoperate with a protocol Android already speaks: it circumvents no access control or copy protection, ships no Google code, and requires no modification of the phone.

Trademarks. Android, Google Play and Quick Share are trademarks of Google LLC, used here only to describe what this software interoperates with. Protocol details come from independent community work: Martichou's rquickshare, by way of our fork (see License).

Architecture

Three layers (spec §5). The two lower layers are shared Rust with one source tree for macOS and Linux; UIs are fully native per platform.

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ UI (native per OS)                                           │
│  macOS: Swift/SwiftUI via UniFFI     Linux: Rust + GTK4      │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ DOMAIN  dh-domain: commands in, events out; owns sessions,   │
│         policy, limits; the only API a UI ever sees          │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ DATA    dh-qs-core: Quick Share front door over rqs_lib      │
│         dh-core: staging · atomic finalize · name safety     │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Crate / dir	Role
crates/dh-core	Filesystem safety: sanitization, limits, atomic finalization (implemented + tested)
crates/dh-qs-core	Quick Share front door: adapts the rev-pinned GPL rqs_lib from our fork (protocol, crypto, mDNS) to the domain seam
crates/dh-domain	Session orchestration; the command/event API (implemented + tested)
crates/dh-ffi	UniFFI surface for Swift
integration-tests	Headless tests driving dh-domain exactly as a UI would
apps/cli	Headless CLI for exercising the protocol without an app
apps/macos	DroidHarbor for macOS: SwiftUI menu-bar app + window
apps/linux	DroidHarbor for Linux: Rust + GTK4/libadwaita, packaged as an AppImage

Building requires protoc (brew install protobuf / apt install protobuf-compiler) for rqs_lib's vendored protocol definitions.

Building

cargo test --workspace           # data + domain layers and the CLI
cargo clippy --workspace --all-targets -- -D warnings
(cd apps/linux && cargo test)    # the GTK app keeps its own workspace

Requires stable Rust. The macOS app additionally requires Xcode and Tuist (see apps/macos/README.md); the Linux app requires GTK4 and libadwaita (see apps/linux/README.md).

Releasing — tagging, signing, notarizing, publishing both apps from one tag — is documented step by step in DEVELOPMENT.md.

Roadmap

• M0 (protocol spike): wire the rqs_lib front door to the domain and receive one file from a real phone via a headless CLI. Go/no-go gate for the whole approach.
• M1 (trusted receiver): UniFFI bindings, SwiftUI menu-bar app, accept dialog with token, notifications, Reveal in Finder.
• M2 (hardened + packaged): limits/timeouts everywhere, loopback CI sender, fuzzing, firewall hints, signed + notarized DMG.
• 1.0.0 (current): both apps ship from one tag — macOS as a signed, notarized universal DMG (English, Spanish, Italian, French), Linux as x86_64 and aarch64 AppImages built by CI — with in-app update checks on both platforms.
• Next: folder sending, richer transfer diagnostics, CI coverage for the Linux app crate, Linux localization.
• Later: daemon split (Finder/Share extensions), QR+HTTP browser fallback front door.

License

GPL-3.0-or-later (see LICENSE). Chosen deliberately: the protocol layer builds on rquickshare's GPL-3.0 rqs_lib rather than reimplementing the reverse-engineered protocol from scratch. Credit for that protocol work belongs upstream.

DroidHarbor builds against a fork, eaceto/rquickshare, pinned to an exact revision in Cargo.toml. The fork carries changes not yet merged upstream — among them a configurable device name and type, an mDNS unregister fix, per-file progress and staged paths, error classification, consent auto-reject, per-session staging subdirectories, a synthetic SRV hostname for privacy, opt-in IPv6, and key zeroization. The fork is public and GPL-3.0, so the complete corresponding source for the modified library that ships inside every DroidHarbor binary is available at that URL; the pin makes the exact revision unambiguous. The intent is for these patches to land upstream.