Decluttering local file sharing: notes from building LarWay

Apps like Zapya taught a generation to share files offline. They also grew into feature piles. LarWay starts from one idea: sharing a file should not require either person to dig through folders or babysit a transfer.

Let the receiver look, with permission

Most sharing starts with "can you send me that video?" and then a minute of the sender scrolling. In LarWay, once the owner grants permission, the other device can browse the shared file system directly and pick what it needs. Nobody hands over a phone.

Sort for the content, not the folder

A single default sort is wrong for half your files. LarWay picks per type: videos by size, largest first, because that is usually what people came for. Documents by date, most recent first, because the PDF you need is usually the one from today.

Don't send ten thousand loose files

Thousands of small files are slow to transfer one by one. LarWay compresses large batches of uncompressed files into one archive before sending and unpacks them on arrival.

Transfers you can stop watching

A transfer should keep going when the screen turns off. LarWay runs it as a foreground service with live progress in the notification shade, visible from the lock screen.

LarWay is in development and targets Android 9 and newer. I will publish its privacy policy here before release.