You can now transfer files from your PC to your Android device wirelessly through Portal app. Portal will let you transfer music, photos, zip packages and other file formats to your smartphone or tablet with through your WiFi network. The developers behind this app, Pushbullet, have designed it to work flawlessly on all Android devices. Apps like Portal will play a vital role in our push towards a truly port and wire free smartphone. Recently, we have seen the removal of the headphone jack on major devices such as Pixel 2. Similar to that, it is not hard to imagine that brands will soon leave out the charging and data port for more efficient and effortless solutions.
This guide will be focused towards providing you a detailed procedure on how to make use of Portal app and its web utility. For this article to work, you would need an Android device which is running Android 5.0 or newer along with a WiFi connection and of course, a computer. This guide works on all major desktop operating systems as long as they are able to run Chrome or another desktop browser. Read ahead to find out how exactly you can transfer files wirelessly through Portal from your PC to your Android phone.
As discussed, the developers behind Portal are the infamous people who pumped out Pushbullet – a desktop SMS client for your phone. Using what they learned with Pushbullet, they have recently come out with Portal and by user response, they have created another great utility. The philoshopy behind Portal is that you can utilize the existing WiFi network to effortlessly transfer files from your PC to your Android smartphone or tablet.
If this was to be done from scratch, there would be a lot of networking skills involved but thankfully, Portal takes care of that and also covers it all up with a nice and clean graphical user interface which all users love.
How to Transfer Files Wirelessly to Android Phone with Portal
As we have discussed, there are few requirements which need to be checked off for a viable Portal experience. We have listed them right ahead for your ease.
Requirements:
- Android Tablet / Smartphone running Android 5.0 Lollipop or newer.
- Desktop Operating System which runs preferably Google Chrome (Also works with other browsers).
- Both the computer system and the Android device need to be on exactly the same WiFi network.
Have all the requirements checked? Let’s proceed with transferring files wirelessly with Portal app.
Complete Instructions:
Step 1 – First, you need to download Portal app from the Play Store and install it on your device.
Step 2 – After the app is finished installing, open it on your smartphone and tap on Lets Go.
Step 3 – Move on to your computer and access the following URL: portal.pushbullet.com
Step 4 – Move back to your phone / tablet and click on Scan. This will open up a camera window which you would need to point at the QR code being displayed on your computer’s screen.
Step 5 – Here is the fun part, just open your file explorer on your computer system. Drag the item or folder you want to upload and just drag it over to your browser.
Step 6 – The browser window will show a progress bar. Once all is done, it will show a filled out bar and files will appear on your Android device.
Step 7 – You can now simply close the browser window to disconnect the session or keep on dragging more items to be sent to your device.
That’s all there is to it! Now in order to find your files, you can head on to your File Explorer and search for a folder named Portal on the root of your device. If you were transferring music or photos, the app automatically places these files in their respective directories such as Music folder rather than Portal folder.
What Portal Doesn’t Provide
As Portal has its benefits, it also has a few shortcomings. The major one stands out to be the fact that you can not transfer files from your phone to your computer. Hopefully, with improving technology, this can be addressed in future builds.
UPDATE: A better alternative to transferring files wirelessly is AirDroid, a full file manager with many other tools built-in.
Further, you can not transfer files simultaneously to two different devices. For Portal to work, you need a single device which can accept files from a single computer.
For any issues that you may encounter, reach us through the comments and we will get back to you as quickly as we can.
