Eric's Drop to Phone

Drop photos, videos, PDFs, and other files on a Windows PC and open them on an iPhone or Android phone on the same Wi-Fi. Several files in one drop. No cloud, no Bluetooth file send (iPhone does not support that).

v1 is a Windows tray app plus a Safari/Chrome page, plus native phone apps: iOS (com.droptophone.app in Xcode / CI) and Android (com.droptophone.app in Gradle / CI, for Google Play).

Clone: https://github.com/ejw427/DropToPhone.git
Day-to-day branch: dev. Promote to main yourself (merge/push, or Actions → Promote dev → main). Pushes to main can upload TestFlight when TESTFLIGHT_ENABLED is on.

Download the Windows desktop app

Unzip and run DropToPhone.exe. This is the PC app, not the iPhone app.

Production: https://droptophone.welchsoftware.net/EricsDropToPhone-windows.zip
Dev (GitHub prerelease): https://github.com/ejw427/DropToPhone/releases/tag/windows-dev

Needs the .NET 8 Desktop Runtime and ASP.NET Core 8 Runtime (x64).

Website: https://droptophone.welchsoftware.net (Cloudflare). Staging Worker: droptophone-web-dev on *.workers.dev after a dev branch deploy. See docs/CLOUDFLARE.md.

Run in Cursor (this PC)

Status-bar buttons (install the recommended Task Buttons extension if they are missing):

Rebuild — stop, build, start, open the iPhone preview in Cursor's Simple Browser
Run — start if needed, then open the Simple Browser (not Edge/Chrome)
Stop — kill the app on port 17890

The Simple Browser loads http://127.0.0.1:17890/iphone (phone-sized frame). Drop files in the Windows window; the preview updates by itself. Large videos show a progress bar while converting or sending.

From the terminal instead:

dotnet run --project src/DropToPhone.Windows/DropToPhone.Windows.csproj

Then use Run so the embedded browser opens. Do not use the old "open in default browser" path.

iPhone on Wi-Fi

Optionally pick the Wi-Fi/Ethernet address the iPhone actually uses (not a VPN) and Open firewall port.
On the iPhone app: scan the QR once, or tap Connect when the PC appears on Wi-Fi.
Later drops arrive without scanning again. If the PC’s address changes, the phone finds it with Bonjour.
Photos and video save to Photos. PDFs and other documents save to Files.
After linking, Send to PC on the iPhone puts files in Downloads\DropToPhone on Windows.

The window can be closed; the app stays in the notification area. Right-click the tray icon → Quit.

iPhone (no app)

Same Wi-Fi as the PC.
Camera app → scan the QR.
Safari opens http://{pc-ip}:17890/d/{token}.
Save or download. A gallery shows when several files were dropped.

HEIC may not preview in Safari; Download still works.

Native Android app (Windows)

cd src\DropToPhone.Android
.\gradlew.bat assembleDebug

See Android setup and Google Play. Same URLs as Chrome.

Native iOS app (Mac)

git clone https://github.com/ejw427/DropToPhone.git
open src/DropToPhone.iOS/DropToPhone.xcodeproj

See iPhone setup, Android / Play, the project plan, the paid App Store walkthrough (Plan B), and Google Play. Same URLs as Safari/Chrome.

Enable git hooks once after clone:

pwsh -File scripts/setup-git-hooks.ps1

If the phone cannot load the page

Phone and PC on the same LAN (guest Wi-Fi isolation will block this).
After the first scan, the iPhone should find the PC by name even if the IPv4 address changed. If it does not, scan the QR again.
In the Windows app, choose the IPv4 address for that LAN, not VPN or a second NIC (the QR still encodes that address for Safari and first-time setup).
Open firewall port — private inbound TCP 17890, rule name DropToPhone LAN.
Manual rule:

netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="DropToPhone LAN" dir=in action=allow protocol=TCP localport=17890 profile=private

http://127.0.0.1:17890/health on the PC should return ok.

What this is not

Bluetooth/OPP file send or AirDrop. See Architecture and the project plan.