LinkToMac 0.9.0

Both apps update this time: Android 0.8.5 → 0.9.0, Mac 0.8.5 → 0.9.0. Install both — file transfer needs each side.

Send files, both ways

Until now the only thing that crossed between the two devices was the clipboard, and an image had to be squeezed under a 1 MiB frame to get there. Files are now split into chunks and acknowledged one by one, so the frame cap isn't the size limit any more.

From the phone

Share anything, and the share sheet has two new entries:

• Send to Clipboard — for images. Downscaled to fit and dropped straight on the Mac's clipboard, ready to paste.
• Send as a File — for anything. Original quality, saved on the Mac.

Both also appear in the sheet's top row, next to Quick Share's devices, so it's one tap from a photo.

Share a PDF or a zip and only Send as a File shows up — the clipboard entry is for things you can actually paste. Neither one opens the app; a notification tracks the transfer and tells you how it went.

From the Mac

• Drop a file on the dashboard window — the whole screen turns into the drop target.
• Drop it on the menu-bar icon — the panel opens with a drop zone, so this works with the window closed.

Files land in Downloads/Link to Mac on the phone (tap the notification to open one), and in the folder you choose under Settings ▸ Files on the Mac — ~/Downloads/Link to Mac unless you change it.

You can watch it go

Android shows a progress notification both when sending and when receiving. The Mac shows a percentage in the drop zone while sending, and a row on the dashboard while receiving.

"Sent" is a real delivery receipt, not a guess: the sender waits for the other device to acknowledge every single chunk before it says so.

Also fixed

• A full-resolution photo no longer risks taking the phone's background service down. Resizing a modern camera image for the clipboard could exhaust memory; it's now decoded within a bound.
• Fewer images rejected as too large. Photos that used to fail with "can't fit under the frame budget" now compress far enough to go.
• The Mac's name reaches the phone, so the phone's share entries can say which Mac they mean.

Known limitations

• Finder ▸ Share ▸ "Send to Phone" does not work. The extension ships inside the app and even shows up in the Share menu, but macOS refuses to run an app extension that isn't signed with an Apple Developer certificate — and this app is deliberately unsigned. Clicking it does nothing. Use drag-and-drop instead. The code stays in the bundle and will work the day the app has a signing identity.
• 64 MB per file. Anything larger is refused with a message rather than failing halfway.
• Transfers are one file at a time; multi-select isn't supported yet.

Install

Android: sideload linktomac-preview-0.9.0.apk.
macOS: existing installs update themselves via Sparkle; new installs open LinkToMac-0.9.0.dmg (right-click → Open, since the app is unsigned).