This is how you change the visibility of your phone for Sharing nearby
Google’s AirDrop competitor ‘Close sharing’ was made widely available in 2020. Once you enable the feature, all your contacts can send files wirelessly. Would you rather not all contacts see that you have turned on close sharing? Then read this article to change the visibility of your phone.
Share Close Visibility
Sending files between Android phones became easier over the past year with the arrival of Close Sharing. Share Nearby allows you to share photos, links, documents, and apps between phones, and Chrome OS devices, among other things. All devices within the Android and Chrome OS ecosystem are connected via this ‘protocol’. If you are near another Android phone whose contact details you have, you can forward a file in just a few clicks. Once you send a file, the recipient will be notified to accept receipt.
If you often hang out with people who send files for fun, you may prefer to exclude them from your Share Close contacts. In this way you ensure that your phone becomes invisible for some contacts, while the device remains accessible for other contacts.
Adjust visibility
You can easily adjust the visibility of your phone to your contacts via the Android settings menu. Google offers three settings for this: all contacts can activate Share Close when they are near you, only selected contacts can enable this feature in your vicinity, or none of your contacts can use Share Close to send files to your phone.
The steps below will guide you through the process of changing visibility in your environment:
- Open your Android phone’s settings menu
- Click on “Google” and then “Device Connections”
- Then click on ‘Share nearby’ and ‘Visibility of your device’
- Select one of the four levels of visibility
- If you choose ‘Some contacts’, you can select specific contacts
People who aren’t in your contact list won’t be able to connect to your phone, so that’s something you don’t have to worry about. As stated earlier, you are also always in control of which files can be sent to your phone. Do you use Sharing close yourself? If so, what do you think of the service, and if not, why don’t you use the service? Be sure to let us know in the comments at the bottom of the article.
