Support

In order: turn the sending screen's brightness up (LightDrop deliberately never changes it for you), move the camera closer until the code fills most of the viewfinder, hold both devices steady, and avoid a glare or reflection landing on the sending screen. If it still won't lock on, switch the sender to the Close preset — smaller frames are far easier to read.

That usually means the camera has lost focus or drifted off the code. Pull back a few centimetres and settle again — nothing is lost. Fountain coding lets the receiver keep collecting from wherever the sender happens to be in the loop, so an interruption costs you a few seconds rather than the whole transfer.

It depends on the file size, the mode, and the conditions. In turbo mode, measured throughput ranges from roughly 24 KB/s at the default settings to about 75 KB/s with large frames at 30 fps in good conditions — ten to thirty times standard mode. LightDrop estimates the duration before you start, so you can decide whether it is worth it before committing.

There is no artificial limit. Time is the real constraint, not a number we picked, so the app shows an estimated duration instead of blocking you. A few hundred kilobytes is comfortable in turbo mode; several megabytes is possible but means sitting still for a while. For photos, the automatic compression usually brings a normal picture down to a minute or two.

While a QR code is playing, LightDrop keeps the device from sleeping on its own. It does not change your brightness setting — that stays yours, and on a phone you may want it high for a transfer and low again straight after. If auto-brightness in a dark room is fighting you, raise the slider by hand before you start.

Yes. The sender and the receiver are two halves of the same protocol, and turbo mode in particular is LightDrop to LightDrop. The good news is that one purchase covers your iPhone, iPad, and Mac, so pairing your own devices costs nothing extra.

Without a password, yes — anyone who can see the sending screen can capture the same frames your receiver is reading. That is the honest trade-off of moving data as light. With Pro's password encryption on, the payload is encrypted before the first frame is drawn, so recorded frames are useless to anyone who doesn't have the password.

No. The app contains no networking code at all — there is no server to upload to and no account to attach anything to. It behaves identically in airplane mode. See our Privacy Policy for the full detail.

The 7-day trial is an introductory offer on the monthly subscription, so it converts to a paid month unless you turn off auto-renew at least 24 hours before it ends — you can do that the moment you start the trial and still keep Pro for the rest of the free week. If the subscription ends, standard-mode sending and receiving keep working, and files you already transferred are unaffected.

Subscriptions are managed by Apple. On iPhone or iPad, open Settings, tap your name, tap Subscriptions, choose LightDrop, and cancel. On a Mac, open the App Store, click your name, then Account Settings. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period. The Lifetime option is a one-time purchase and has nothing to cancel.

Yes. iPhone, iPad, and Mac share a single Universal Purchase, so buying Pro once unlocks it on every device signed in to the same Apple Account. Both the Monthly and Lifetime options also support Family Sharing.

On the Pro screen, tap "Restore Purchases." Make sure you're signed in with the same Apple Account you used to buy. If it still doesn't appear, email us and we'll help.

LightDrop runs on iPhone and iPad with iOS or iPadOS 16 and later, and on Mac with macOS 13 and later. Receiving needs a camera; a device with a screen but no camera can still be the sender.

A desktop build for Windows is in development and is not available for download yet. When it is ready it will be published here. Until then, a Mac can act as the computer end of a transfer.