We may have good news for Galaxy A users waiting for AirDrop

Google broke through the walled garden and added AirDrop compatibility to Quick Share on the latest Google Pixel 10 series last year. It made clear that AirDrop support would expand to other Android phones in the future, and sure enough, the Galaxy S26 series became the first non-Google phones to get the Quick Share upgrade last week. The timeline for other Samsung phones receiving the Quick Share upgrade and AirDrop compatibility is unclear, but a discovery by GalaxyClub sheds some light on which models are next in line.

Multiple app updates and extensions must be installed for an Android phone to gain AirDrop compatibility. The big one is the Quick Share extension version 1.0.874307641 (or newer), which Google created from scratch to enable AirDrop file sharing. You will also need Quick Share version 13.8.51.58, Quick Share Agent  version 3.5.22.24, and Quick Share Connectivity version 1.5.13.15 (or newer). GalaxyClub revealed that sideloading the necessary apps and extensions on unsupported phones hints at which will gain AirDrop compatibility in the future.

Specifically, sideloading the prerequisite applications on certain older and officially unsupported Galaxy phones unlocks a “Share with Apple devices” menu. This is the same screen that enables AirDrop functionality on the Samsung Galaxy S26 series. So, it’s reasonable to surmise that any phone displaying the “Share with Apple devices” page after sideloading the required apps will get AirDrop support eventually.

It’s worth pointing out that, even after sideloading the required Quick Share apps and extensions, AirDrop compatibility doesn’t work on Samsung phones outside of the Galaxy S26 series. Officially, Samsung has committed to bringing AirDrop to other Galaxy models “at a later date,” but other details are unknown.