WinDrop
Send files between your Windows PC and your iPhone over your own Wi‑Fi. The file goes straight from one device to the other — it never touches the internet, a cloud account, or anyone’s server.
Pre‑alpha
What it does
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Both directions
Windows to iPhone and iPhone to Windows. Pick a file, send it, it arrives.
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Your network only
The two devices talk directly over your local Wi‑Fi. No account, no sign‑in, no upload, no third party in between.
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Finds your PC for you
Automatic discovery on the network, with QR pairing. Typing an IP address by hand still works if you prefer it.
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Accessible on both ends
The Windows app is built on raw Win32 so NVDA reads it properly. The iPhone app is SwiftUI, labelled for VoiceOver.
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No developer account
The iPhone app is sideloaded with SideStore or AltStore, re‑signed with your own free Apple ID. No paid Apple Developer membership, no jailbreak.
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Any file, any size
Transfers run at local network speed rather than upload speed, so large files are a matter of seconds, not minutes.
The honest limitation
The receiving device has to have WinDrop open. On iPhone that means open in the foreground, not minimised.
This is not something that can be tidied up in a later version. iOS suspends a backgrounded app’s network connections, and a sideloaded app cannot keep a listener alive through it. Working around that would need push‑notification infrastructure and a server, which would defeat the point of a tool that keeps your files on your own network.
On Windows the app can be minimised and still receive.
| Sending | The receiver must be |
|---|---|
| Windows to iPhone | App open in the foreground on the phone. |
| iPhone to Windows | App running on the PC. Minimised is fine. |
| iPhone to iPhone or iPad | App open in the foreground on the receiving device. |
Where it is up to
WinDrop is pre‑alpha and under active development. This is what is done and what is coming:
| Feature | v0.1 | v0.2 | v0.3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Send Windows to iPhone | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Send iPhone to Windows | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Enter an address by hand | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Automatic discovery | No | Yes | Yes |
| Encryption and pairing PIN | No | No | Yes |
Getting it
Not released yet. Encryption and pairing are being finished first — sending your files over an unencrypted connection is not something worth shipping, so it is being fixed before rather than after.
Releases will appear here when there is something worth installing:
You can watch that repository to be notified the moment it lands. When it
does, the Windows side is a single windrop.exe with nothing
to install, and the iPhone side is an app you sideload — see
how sideloading works.