OpenBeam

Revive the Android Beam experience on modern Android

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OpenBeam is an open-source Android app that brings back the tap-to-share experience of Android Beam on modern Android (8.0+). Google removed Android Beam in Android 10 — OpenBeam fills that gap without requiring Google Play Services.

Features

• Share URLs via NFC tap — creates an NDEF URI record on any writable NFC tag
• Share contacts (vCard) via NFC tap
• Share images with QR codes — scans the image for a QR code and beams the decoded content (URL or Wi-Fi credentials) via NFC
• Wi-Fi Direct fallback — when the image has no QR code or NFC is unavailable, transfers the file over Wi-Fi Direct (no Google Services required)
• No app drawer icon — OpenBeam only appears in the system share sheet
• Translations: English, Español, Català

How it works

1. Tap Share in any app and select OpenBeam from the share sheet
2. OpenBeam shows an overlay dialog
3. For text/URLs/vCards: tap your phone against an NFC tag to write the data
4. For images: OpenBeam first scans for a QR code
   • QR found → converts to NDEF message → tap to write to NFC tag
   • No QR → transfers via Wi-Fi Direct to another nearby device running OpenBeam

Permissions

Permission	Why
NFC	Core feature: write NDEF data to NFC tags
ACCESS_WIFI_STATE / CHANGE_WIFI_STATE	Wi-Fi Direct peer discovery and file transfer
NEARBY_WIFI_DEVICES (API 33+)	Wi-Fi peer discovery without location
ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION (API < 33)	Required by Android for Wi-Fi peer discovery
INTERNET	TCP socket communication over Wi-Fi Direct

Building

./fastlane/gradlew assembleDebug

Or with Fastlane:

bundle exec fastlane build

Signing a release

keytool -genkeypair -v -keystore release.jks -alias openbeam -keyalg EC -groupname secp256r1 -sigalg SHA256withECDSA -validity 10000
base64 -w 0 release.jks ; echo

Add GitHub Secrets: ANDROID_KEYSTORE_BASE64, ANDROID_KEYSTORE_PASSWORD, ANDROID_KEY_PASSWORD, ANDROID_KEY_ALIAS.

License

Apache 2.0 — see LICENSE for details.