Turn your phone into a private server. Share files, play media and host a web page for anyone on your hotspot or Wi-Fi. No cloud, no accounts, no data plan.

Quick start · Features · Meet Aubree · Host a page · Coming soon · Support · Privacy

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See it

🐶 Meet Aubree

Aubree is DropLink's mascot. She greets a device that asks to connect, waits with it while you approve, and celebrates when it joins. She also turns up on empty folders, errors, lost connections and low-power warnings, so every screen has a friendly face and a clear next step. Aubree comes from AubreeKit. In the app she is drawn with aubree-compose, and the web client uses the pictures in web/src/aubree/. People who prefer less motion see a still picture instead of the animation.

Welcome A device asks to connect	Waiting Waiting for you to approve	Celebrating A device just joined	Offline Can't reach the phone
Empty Nothing in this folder yet	Oops Something went wrong	Sleepy Battery Saver may pause hosting

⚡ Quick start

1. Install the APK from the Releases page and open DropLink.
2. Share a folder: Files → Add shared folder. Access is read-only and limited to what you pick.
3. Start hosting on the Home screen. Turn on your hotspot, or join the same Wi-Fi as the other devices.
4. Connect: scan the QR code on the Home screen with the other device's camera. DropLink opens in its browser with nothing to type.
5. Approve the request on your phone after checking the code matches. That's it.

The first time, the browser shows a certificate warning. DropLink encrypts everything with its own certificate, so compare the fingerprint shown in the app, then continue.

✨ Features

📁 Share folders	Pick folders with Android's own picker. Read-only, nothing is copied or uploaded.
⚡ Fast browsing	Folders open from a single storage query, are cached, and thumbnails load instead of full photos.
🎵 Music and video that keep playing	A persistent player with queue (reorder and clear), shuffle, repeat, speed, sleep timer, resume where you left off and lock-screen controls. Keep browsing while it plays.
🔔 Notification sound	Requests and received files play the DropLink sound. One switch in Settings turns it off.
📥 Receive files	Paired devices can send files to the phone, but only after you approve: once, or always for that device (or block it). They are saved in Downloads/DropLink.
🔐 Approval-based access	New devices must be approved on the phone and can be revoked any time. Everything runs over HTTPS.
📱 Connect by QR	One code opens DropLink. An optional small code lets a phone join your hotspot without typing the password.
🌐 Host a page	Publish a website from a folder, with sign-in accounts and forms that send information to your phone.
🧩 Installable web client	A clean Fluent-style design with light and dark themes, accent colours, favourites, recents, "continue where you left off" and an offline-friendly shell.
♿ Accessible by design	Keyboard shortcuts, screen-reader labels, a skip link, focus that stays in pop-ups, text size, high contrast and reduce-motion settings.
🔄 Reconnects by itself	If the address changes, scan the new QR code from the "Can't reach the phone" screen.
🛡️ Built to keep hosting	Foreground service, wake and Wi-Fi locks, a self-checking watchdog, and a warning when Battery Saver would pause it.
🚀 Speed test	Measure the link between a device and the phone.
🐶 Aubree, the DropLink mascot	Aubree welcomes people who ask to connect, waits with them for approval, celebrates when a device joins, and shows up for empty screens, errors and low power. She comes from AubreeKit.

🌐 Host a page

Publish a real website straight from your phone, perfect for a class, a shop, an event or a family notice board.

• Choose a folder with an index.html, switch Publish on, share the address.
• Create sign-in accounts; anything in a folder named private/ is shown only to signed-in visitors.
• Pages can send information back to you (contact forms, check-ins, orders) with a single fetch call.
• Choose whether anyone on the network can open it or only devices you approved.

await fetch('/site-api/submit/contact', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' },
  body: JSON.stringify({ name, message })
})

Read the Host a page guide and try the ready-made sample site.

🔭 Coming soon

📺 Live streaming	Watch a video file as the phone plays it.
📹 Live camera	Use the phone as a CCTV camera.
🖥️ Remote presentation	Control slides on a big screen from the phone (PDF and image slides first; native PowerPoint rendering is a bigger project and comes later).
📤 Send and receive files	Send to one, two or everyone connected. Recipients accept, or turn on auto-accept. People add their name on first visit.
👥 People	See who is connected and send them messages, files and attachments.
💬 Feedback	Visitors send feedback to you, and you reply.
📋 Richer device list	More detail about every connected device.

Follow progress in the roadmap.

🔒 Privacy and security

• No cloud. No accounts with us, no ads, no analytics, no trackers. Your files never leave your devices.
• Encrypted with HTTPS between devices, approval required for every new device, read-only shared folders.
• Logs and crash reports stay on your phone unless you choose to email them.

Read the Privacy Policy and the security model.

🧭 How it works

flowchart LR
    A["📱 Your phone<br/>DropLink server"] <-->|"Hotspot or Wi-Fi<br/>HTTPS"| B["💻 Laptop browser"]
    A <-->|HTTPS| C["📱 Friend's phone"]
    A <-->|HTTPS| D["📺 Smart TV browser"]
    A -. "read-only" .-> E[("📁 Folders you chose")]
    A -. "optional" .-> F["🌐 Your hosted page"]

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🛠️ Build it yourself

You need Android Studio with Android SDK 36, JDK 17, and Node.js 20+ for the web client.

# 1. Web client (outputs into the app's assets)
cd web && npm install && npm run build && cd ..

# 2. Android app
gradle assembleDebug           # Gradle 8.11+, or open the folder in Android Studio and press Run
gradle assembleRelease         # signed, shrunk release build (see below)

Release builds are shrunk with R8. Code is minified and unused resources are removed, which makes the APK smaller. The rules live in app/proguard-rules.pro. CI keeps each release's mapping.txt as a workflow artifact, so an obfuscated crash log can be turned back into real names (retrace). If a release build ever reports missing classes, add a -dontwarn line for them, or check app/build/outputs/mapping/release/missing_rules.txt.

Part	Technology
App and server	Kotlin, Jetpack Compose, Ktor (CIO), ZXing
Web client	React, TypeScript, a hand-made Fluent-style design system
Releases	GitHub Actions (signed, semantic versioning)

More in docs/: architecture, network protocol, service API, web client, performance and troubleshooting.

💬 Support and feedback

• 🐞 Found a bug or have an idea? Open an issue on GitHub.
• ✉️ Feedback, or something went wrong? Email trebronwayne@gmail.com. In the app, Settings → Hosting activity → Email log (or the Problem report card) prepares the message for you. Nothing is sent unless you press send.
• 🤝 Want to help? Pull requests are welcome. Please open an issue first for larger changes.
• ☕ Like DropLink? You can support its development on Ko-fi. There is also a Support DropLink on Ko-fi button in the app, under About.

📄 License

Licensed under the Apache License 2.0. See the Privacy Policy for how information is handled.

_{Made for people who want to share on their own terms.}