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Google’s Nearby Sharing feature has been existing since August 2020. The main idea behind this feature is to make it easier to share files between two devices. The good news is that now, using Nearby Share, users can share apps and updates from Google Play Store.
Nearby Share allows you to share contacts and more to nearby Android devices or Chrome. Now since this feature is live for Google Play Store, users can share apps with nearby Android devices.
The report by 9to5Google mentions that this feature will work on Google Play Store app version 24.0 or newer. FYI, folks at 9To5Google spotted this Nearby Sharing feature on Google Play Store in an APK insight post.
APK Insight helps spot new features that developers (Google in our case) may or may not release for their apps. Fortunately, Google found this feature useful for users and thus, made it live for Play Store.
Well, if you want to know how you can share your apps and updates from Google Play Store using Nearby Share then first, you need to make sure that you have the latest version or version 24.0 of the Play Store installed on your Android device.
Once you are done with the above, open Play Store and tap the three-line menu button located at the top left corner. Now tap on the “My apps & games” section.
Under My apps & games, a “Share” tab will be visible after updating Play Store to the newest version
Under the “My apps & games” section, you will see a horizontal tab section that shows multiple tabs. There will be a new “Share” tab visible. If you do not see the “Share” tab, then you should probably wait for a few minutes. As Play Store takes some time to enable this feature.
Now in the “Share” tab you will two options, to let your device either “Send” or “Receive” a particular Play Store app. However, note that you need to grant location access to Play Store to use any of the features.
Don’t worry. The location access is used to determine which devices are available for Nearby Sharing. If you select the option “Send” then it will present you the list of apps that ready to be sent. Keep in mind, not all the apps are available for sharing via Nearby Sharing.
For example, the Stadia app was not available for sharing. Similarly, side-loaded apps, apps bought by you, not available on the Play Store, cannot be shared using Nearby Share.
Once the apps that you wish to send have been chosen, your device will look for the receiving device. The recipient needs to press the “Receive” button to be recognized by the sender’s device.
A pairing request will be sent over to the recipient where both the devices will be shown a pairing code. This is done in order to ensure no one has hijacked your session.
When the download completes, the recipient needs to press the “Install” button for each app or “Install All” for all the apps. Until you tap the “Disconnect” button, both the devices will remain connected.
