Airdrop is one of the most praised features in the Apple ecosystem. The only way to access Airdrop on all their devices is to fully embrace Apple’s walled garden and buy all their hardware from Apple.
KDE Connect offers airdrop-like file sharing and other features without locking users into Apple’s ecosystems.
It is open source (meaning users can audit the source code and adapt it to suit their needs) and is available on all major desktop and mobile operating systems.
Features
- Cross-device file and link sharing — enables users to share files and links between their desktop and mobile devices. When shared between devices, users can choose where the files are saved. Users can access and browse the files on their phones from their computers remotely.
- Shared clipboard — KDE Connect’s clipboard feature makes copying and pasting text from one device to another easy. Currently, this feature supports only text. KDE Connect’s cross-device file and link sharing feature can be used to share anything that is not text.
- Shared notifications — KDE Connect can display mobile notifications on the desktop and broadcast desktop notifications to users' phones, allowing two-way communication between the devices. This way, users can reply to certain types of mobile message notifications from their desktop and answer mobile phone calls on the desktop, making the experience more convenient and efficient.
- Remote desktop control — KDE Connect has several features that make it easy to control your desktop devices from your phone. With the remote media controller, you can play music and videos on your desktop from your phone, and with virtual input, you can use your mobile device as your touchpad or keyboard. The remote presentation controller lets you control your desktop presentations from your phone.
- Remote Commands — KDE Connect allows users to remotely run various desktop commands from their phone. These commands can shut down or reboot the desktop device, lock and unlock the screen, control the volume, adjust the screen brightness, and more.
- Contact Syncs — The KDE Connect contact sync feature automatically syncs your phone and desktop contacts, allowing you to access your contact details on your desktop and creating backups of your contacts without relying on Apple or Google.
- Battery Monitor — Users can monitor their phone’s battery level from their desktop without having to wake their phone by enabling the battery monitor feature. The phone’s battery level is displayed in the desktop menu, allowing users to keep an eye on their phone’s battery level without having to wake their phone.
- OpenVPN Support — KDE Connect allows users to connect to it through OpenVPN clients. By using a VPN server or a third-party VPN that supports OpenVPN, users can securely connect to KDE Connect.
- Ring Phone — If you’re a KDE connect user and you lose your phone, you can ring it from a connected device at any time. This feature is designed to help you locate your phone if you misplace it.
Limitations
- Speed — KDE Connect is slower than Airdrop, but the speed differences are minimal. When transferring large files, the speed difference can be significant.
- Shared clipboard — KDE’s clipboard only supports text, whereas Apple’s Universal Clipboard supports text, images, and videos. However, Apple’s cross-device copying and pasting functionality work seamlessly on desktop and mobile devices. With KDE, copying from desktop to mobile is still reasonably easy. Text copied from mobile, however, needs to be manually sent to the desktop before it can be pasted.
- iOS's limitations — Unfortunately, the iOS version of KDE Connect doesn’t support shared notifications. Additionally, because Apple restricts background interactions, KDE Connect may become unresponsive when it’s not in the foreground.
You can get more information about KDE Connect and download it at
KDE ConnectKDE Connect: A project that enables all your devices to communicate with each other.
kdeconnect.kde.org
It supports Linux, Android, macOS, Windows, iOS, and others.
Conclusion
This tool may not be necessary if you primarily use Apple products, but it can be handy if your needs are cross-platform.
