You can add Quick Share to your Kindle, but there’s a catch

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

As noticed Hackadaydeveloper unrealJune has created Kindshare, an open source project that adds Quick Share reception to compatible Kindles. Once everything is set up, your Kindle will appear as a destination in the Quick Share app, which lets you send files wirelessly.

There are some pretty big catches and some minor upsets. To get started, you’ll need a Kindle model and a jailbroken firmware version, and running tools like KOReader and installing Kindshare involves some technical setup on your computer. You can find all the steps here GitHub page if you want to give it. Please note that the developer has only tested the full installation on a Kindle Voyage with firmware 5.13.6, so compatibility with other models is not guaranteed.

Kindshare is currently receive-only, meaning you can send files to your Kindle, but not vice versa. Remittances are also accepted automatically, which should be considered from a security point of view. But another neat thing is that if there’s no network available, the Kindle can create its own Wi-Fi hotspot, giving the phone something to connect to for transfer. The Kindle needs to be awake for this, as its Wi-Fi is turned off when the device is asleep.

This kind of fiddle won’t be for your average e-book reader, but if you’re someone who likes to poke around in the weeds like that, the ability to quickly share files directly from your phone is a very handy addition.