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How to enable close sharing in Windows 11

  • Enabling close sharing in Windows 11 is one of the best decisions you can make, to resolve the sending of various content between your computer and other devices
  • It is not the best possible solution under normal circumstances, but in an emergency it could get you out of a tight spot, allowing you to do without cables, and resorting to the technologies of your computer

Although it is true that a lot of progress has been made in this regard, and that today sending content between different teams is not as difficult as it was a few years ago, that does not mean that we have solved that basic need forever. Anyway, there are some cheats available, and If you want to transfer files more easily on your PC you can do it, of course, if you know how. For example, when enabling close sharing in Windows 11.

For those of you unfamiliar, Close Sharing is a minimal but practical feature that the folks at Microsoft have included on their teams since April 2018, allowing us to easily share documents, photos and other content with nearby devices via Bluetooth or WiFi.

Fortunately, this is one of the good features that survived the upgrade to Windows 11, so in this article we want to show you how to enable close sharing in this version step by step.

Earlier, a little history about close sharing

As we said, Microsoft first released close sharing as part of the April 2018 update for Windows 10, although the advantage is that this feature is also available in Windows 11.

Of course, you have to keep in mind that is disabled by default, so the first part of the tutorial basically consists of reverting that original configuration, making it appear enabled.

Beyond that, its operation is not too far from the one we have in AirDrop, that tool that Apple has developed to easily transfer content between your iPhone, iPad and MacBook devices.

Why is it not so well known then, or has it not been so successful? We could summarize it by saying that because the function It is only useful for transferring between Windows computers, making it impossible to play with other operating systems.

Minimum requirements to use close sharing

We cannot continue without clarifying, on the other hand, that not all Windows computers support close sharing, and there are some minimum requirements that you have to take into account before starting.

Both computers must run Windows, be it Windows 10 or Windows 11, support Bluetooth 4.0 or higher with Low Energy compatibility, be physically close and, if necessary, connected to the same WiFi network.

And we emphasize the use of the WiFi network because the files are transferred more quickly that way than when we transfer them using Bluetooth, so that always you should give priority to WiFi networks.

How to enable close sharing in Windows 11

With all the above clarified, the next thing will be to see that close sharing is enabled in Windows 11. Something that you can easily check from System, previously pressing the Windows keys + I.

In that window there will be a section dedicated to nearby sharing, which is the one that you must modify, or rather enable, to share files, photos and links with all nearby available devices.

Another detail to consider is that, by default, shared files are saved in the Downloads folder. Obviously, from the Change button, you can set any other destination for them.

How to share files through close sharing

If you are going to share from sharing, you must check that the function is active on both devices, because if it is only in one of them, in no way will you be able to complete the transfer.

  • Once you have reviewed that non-minor issue, the following will be to perform each of these steps:
  • Use File Explorer to navigate to the one you want to share on your PC
  • On the file, right click and select Show more options
  • In the next contextual menu, you will see the Share
  • The computer will show you the compatible devices, and you must select the one to which to send the file
  • When you have checked it, you will see a notification that says “Sharing with (second device name)”
  • In turn, you must go to that second device and accept the receipt of the file that is being sent to you
  • On that second device, you will be able to select if you want to just Save, or Save and open the file

How to share files directly from Microsoft Edge?

You can also share links to any website or web page using close sharing in Microsoft Edge. Always, of course, both computers are running Windows 10 or Windows 11.

  • Open Microsoft Edge and navigate to the website in question, the one you want to share
  • Click on the ellipsis of the three-point menu, at the top right
  • Select Share from the drop-down menu
  • The target computer will appear
  • In it, accept the request

Conclusions

As you can see, it is extremely easy to enable close sharing on your Windows 11 computer. Now that you know how to do it, what are the steps to follow, you can transfer files more easily.

What’s more, these technologies will be increasingly common due to the ecosystems that are formed between the different devices, as happens for example with the arrival of Health Sharing in iOS 15 on the iPhone.

Before finishing, one last tip: keep close sharing disabled without using it. This will prevent people outside your computer from sending important content of yours to themselves.

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