The app for Android

With transfer.studio for Android you send photos, videos and files straight from your phone, say from a shoot, on set or from a site visit. They upload in the background while you fill in the transfer, and once the link is ready, you pass it on with Android's share sheet.

The app is included in every plan and needs Android 10 or later. It sends and shows your transfers. Requesting files, branding, your team and the workspace's settings stay on the web.

Install and sign in

1. Get transfer.studio from Google Play, which you'll find under Apps in the web app, and open the app.
2. Tap Sign in. The transfer.studio sign-in opens in your browser.
3. Sign in the way you do on the web. At Sign in to transfer.studio for Android?, tap Sign in, and the app takes over.

Only confirm the sign-in if you just started it yourself in the app. The app works as you, with your role, in all your workspaces. You create an account on the web, not in the app.

The app starts in the workspace you last used on the web. If you have several, tap the workspace's name above Transfers and pick the one you're sending from. The dot in front of it has its brand's colour, and your transfers appear in that branding. If a workspace has no active subscription, the app says so and sends nothing from it. Links already sent keep working.

Add files

There are three ways:

• In the app: tap Send files at the bottom right and choose Photos and videos or Files.
• From the home screen: touch and hold the transfer.studio icon and choose Photos or Files.
• From any app: in Google Photos, the Gallery, Files, Gmail or any other app, choose Share, then transfer.studio. The same transfer opens over the app you're sharing from.

Photos and videos go out in their original quality, nothing compressed. Since Android's photo picker doesn't reveal file names, they're named the way the camera names them, such as IMG_20261104_103012.jpg.

A transfer holds up to 1,000 files of up to 100 GB each. The upload starts right away, while you're still filling in the rest. Each file shows its progress, and Add adds more. The cross on a file removes it again.

To share, you need to be signed in to the app. Shared files go into the workspace the app is showing. transfer.studio takes files only, not links or text.

Send

At the top, choose Link or Email:

• Link: Title and Message are optional. Tap Create link.
• Email: enter the addresses under Recipients, along with a Subject and Message. The app suggests addresses your workspace has sent to before, and Add from contacts picks one from your contacts without giving the app access to them. Tap Send.

Under Options, Sent as shows the brand the transfer goes out under. Then there's Expires after (1, 7, 14 or 30 days) and Protection: None, Password or Email code. Both start with the workspace's settings, as in the web app. What the fields mean is explained in Send a transfer.

You don't have to wait until everything has uploaded. The app creates the transfer as soon as the uploads finish:

• For a link, it copies it and opens Android's share sheet, so you can pass it on in WhatsApp, Signal or Gmail right away. Under Your link is ready. you'll find it afterwards with Share link and Copy link.
• For an email, the recipients get the download link from your brand's sender name.

In the background

You can close the transfer, lock your phone or switch apps: the upload carries on. Continue in the background closes it, and a notification shows how much is up and how long is left, also as a Live Update in the status bar on Android 16 and later. That's also how you close a transfer you shared from another app: the app takes it over.

Pause in that notification pauses the upload. In the app it then shows as Paused under On its way: tap Carry on, and it carries on where it stopped. Android limits how long an app may upload in the background each day. When the time is up, the transfer pauses the same way, and a notification tells you. If Android stops the app altogether, it carries on with the transfer next time you open it.

If the connection drops, the transfer shows Waiting for a connection and resumes by itself once you're back online.

There's more about uploads in Large files and interrupted uploads.

Mobile data

Sending large files over mobile data uses up your data plan. In Settings, turn off Upload over mobile data, and uploads wait for Wi-Fi, showing Waiting for Wi-Fi. That applies to uploads already running, too.

The app goes by what Android says: it only uploads over networks Android doesn't count as metered. A hotspot from another phone usually counts as metered, so it won't upload over that either.

Notifications

On Android 13 and later, the app asks whether it may send you notifications with the first transfer that still has files to upload. If you allow it, it tells you when a transfer settles while you're not in the app:

• Your link is ready: tap Share or Copy link.
• Sent: the email went out to the recipients.
• Paused: you or Android paused the upload. Tap it to carry on.
• Not sent yet: something went wrong. Tap it to try again.

The notifications are made on the phone itself, with no push service, so nothing leaves your device for them. Settings → Notifications turns them on or off in Android's settings, separately for Uploads (the progress) and Sends (links that are ready and transfers that need you).

Your transfers

Under Transfers you see what you've sent from the chosen workspace, grouped by day, with previews and whether anyone has opened or downloaded each transfer. Whatever is still uploading sits at the top under On its way. The search field at the top finds transfers by title, recipient or file name. Pull the list down to reload it.

Tap a transfer for its details:

• The link, to copy and share.
• How often it was Opened and Downloaded, and how many Days left it has.
• The Recipients, with when each one opened or downloaded it, and all Files. Tap an image, video, audio file or PDF to view or play it right there. That doesn't count as an open.

Behind the three dots at the top right is what you can still do with the transfer:

• Open download page: you see the page your recipients see.
• Extend: 1, 7, 14 or 30 days from now.
• Delete transfer: the link stops working right away and the files are deleted within the hour. This can't be undone.

There's more in Change expiry and delete transfers. To see your whole team's transfers, use the web app.

Settings and signing out

Your initials at the top right, beside the search field, open Settings. There you see who you're signed in as, switch workspaces if you have several, turn Upload over mobile data on or off, and find Notifications, the privacy policy and, on Android 13 and later, Language: English or German, whatever language your phone uses.

Sign out removes your sign-in from the phone, and its access stops working at once. Uploads that haven't finished are stopped and deleted. If you change or reset your password, you're signed out on every Android phone. Sign in to the app again afterwards. See Account, sign-in and language.

What stays on your phone

The app uploads files straight to our storage in Switzerland, just like the browser, and otherwise talks only to transfer.studio. What it keeps on your phone:

• Your sign-in, and the password of a transfer still waiting for its uploads, encrypted with a key that never leaves Android's keystore.
• Files you share from another app, as a copy in the app's own storage until the transfer is created. Files you pick in the app are read where they are, without copying them.
• Your settings, such as whether uploads use mobile data.

None of it goes into Google's backup or moves to a new phone. There, you simply sign in again. The app makes preview images on your phone, not on our servers. See Previews. No analytics, no crash reports.