Forget iPhones — this hack brings Quick Share to Kindles

Quick Share made an unexpected leap beyond Android last year when Google made it compatible with Apple’s AirDrop. Now it’s more or less reached another device you probably wouldn’t have expected, as an unofficial project lets you send files from an Android phone straight to a jailbroken Kindle.

As spotted by Hackaday, developer unrealJune has created Kindshare, an open-source project that adds Quick Share receiving to compatible Kindles. Once everything is set up, the Kindle can appear as a destination in Quick Share, letting you send files over wirelessly.

There are some fairly big catches and a bit of nerdy tinkering involved. For a start, you’ll need a Kindle model and firmware version that can be jailbroken, and running tools like KOReader and installing Kindshare involves some technical setup on a computer. You can find all the steps on the GitHub page if you want to give it a go. It’s worth noting that the developer has only verified the full setup on a Kindle Voyage running firmware 5.13.6, so compatibility with other models isn’t guaranteed.

Kindshare is receive-only for now, meaning you can send files to the Kindle but not the other way around. Incoming transfers are also accepted automatically, which is worth bearing in mind from a security perspective. But one neat extra is that the Kindle can create its own Wi-Fi access point if there’s no network available, giving your phone something to connect to for the transfer. The Kindle needs to be awake for that, since its Wi-Fi shuts down when the device is sleeping.

This kind of fiddling isn’t going to be for your average ebook reader, but if you’re the kind of person who enjoys getting into the weeds in this manner, being able to Quick Share files directly from your phone is a pretty handy addition.