Quick Share’s mobile data toggle is finally rolling out

Ready to handle your biggest files, data caps be damned!

May 22, 2025 - 03:00

Quick Share’s mobile data toggle is finally rolling out

Last year, we spotted Google working to bring a mobile data toggle to Quick Share.
In February, Google formally announced the feature as part of a Play Services update.
Three months later, the toggle is finally rolling out to the public.

On one hand, data is data, and whether we’re sending our files over USB, by Wi-Fi, or over a carrier’s cellular network, it all ends up the same in the end. But there are also lots of practical considerations that belie that kind of blanket statement — we may want to choose to download YouTube Music tracks over Wi-Fi, for instance, rather than running down our cellular data allotment. While limitations on how we move around data can be useful like that, we’d also rather the choice be ours, instead of one made for us. Right now, Google’s updating Android Quick Share to address exactly those kind of concerns.

When Nearby Share became Quick Share, it lost an occasionally useful option in the process: the ability to send files over cellular networks. Last fall, we got our first hint that Google was working to do something about this, though, as we spotted early progress towards restoring a “use mobile data” option. And sure enough, a few months later, in February, we saw Google publish a Play Services update that announced this mobile data option was returning.