After being spotted first in July last year, Google finally started testing its AirDrop-like file sharing service – Nearby Share in Google Play Services beta earlier this month, followed by a broader availability in the stable channel. Now, the software giant has started disabling the feature on Android phones.
As spotted by Reddit users and Android Police readers, Nearby Share started to disappear from devices. The change happened after updating to the latest version (20.30.15) of Google Play Services.
Going by the reports, Google is not entirely removing all the traces of Nearby Share. Instead, the company grayed out (disabled) the Nearby Share toggle in the Quick Settings tile. The Nearby Share button in Android’s share sheet seems to be missing, though.
While everyone expected Google to keep the beta version alive, Google apparently has other plans. In Google’s defense, the company had mentioned that the rollout is part of a limited beta testing.
For now, there’s no official information regarding when Google would make Nearby Share available again. There are two chances – Google may either rollout Nearby Share next month (August) or save it to announce alongside Android 11‘s stable launch, which is likely to happen on the 8th of September.
Personally speaking, Nearby Share never got enabled on my device despite living on the edge with Google Play Services beta. This is due to a server-side limitation since the feature needed an additional component. Now that the feature is not being selectively rolled out, I can finally sleep peacefully at night without the constant fear of missing out, although I would probably use it once in six months at best.
