About Volo
Volo is a free web app for moving files and text directly between two devices, such as a phone, a tablet or a computer, using nothing but their browsers.
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What Volo is
You open Volo on one device and create a room. You open the room link or scan its QR code on the other device, and the two browsers connect. Then you can send files and short text, such as a link or a note, in either direction. There is nothing to install and no account to create.
Volo runs in modern WebRTC-capable browsers on iPhone, Android, Windows, macOS and Linux. It can also be installed to the home screen as a web app.
The problem it solves
Moving a big file between devices from different ecosystems, like an iPhone and a Windows PC, is still awkward. The usual options each have a catch:
- Cloud uploads, which copy your file to someone else's server and often limit file size.
- Cables and adapters that you may not have to hand.
- Accounts and sign-ups just to hand a file to yourself.
- Email and messaging apps that compress media or cap attachment size.
How Volo approaches it
Volo connects the two browsers peer to peer. Files aren't uploaded or stored: file data flows directly between the two browsers and is encrypted in transit with DTLS, WebRTC's built-in transport encryption. A public signaling server introduces the two devices, but it never receives file contents.
The sender reads a file in small pieces, and the receiving browser writes those pieces to disk as they arrive where it can, so very large files don't have to fit in memory. Volo is free and needs no account.
Who makes Volo
Volo is an independent project created and maintained by Umang Pancholi. It is not run by a company, and there is no sales team or paid tier behind it.
Current limits
We would rather you know these up front:
- Both devices must keep Volo open and stay online for the whole transfer. If the connection drops, the transfer stops and has to start again, because there is no resume.
- No fixed size limit from Volo when the receiver saves straight to disk (desktop Chrome and Edge). Other browsers, including Safari on iPhone and Firefox, hold the file in memory and are capped at 1GB.
- Volo is designed for very large files (tens of GB). Practical limits depend on the browser, the receiving device, free disk space, how stable the connection is, and OS behavior.
- It often works across different networks, but same Wi-Fi is most reliable. Volo has no relay server today, so some strict networks can't connect at all.
- On iPhone, locking the screen or switching apps can interrupt a transfer.
- Volo adds no end-to-end encryption layer of its own on top of WebRTC's transport encryption.
The security overviewcovers exactly what is and isn't protected. The guide to peer-to-peer file transfer in the browser explains the technology in more depth.
Get in touch
Questions, bug reports and feedback are welcome. See the contact page for how to reach the maintainer.