Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]

Groups > comp.sys.mac.system > #146436

Re: How to transfer & play videos from a PC to an iPad using LocalSend and VLC

Cross-posted to 3 groups.

Show all headers | View raw

Your Name wrote:
> On 2026-07-01 04:19:15 +0000, Stack Ghost said:
>> On 2026-06-27 5:51 p.m., Maria Sophia wrote:
>>> [...]
>>> In summary, this is one way to transfer large MP4 and associated SRT files
>>> from the desktop to an iPad over Wi-Fi without iTunes, without USB, without
>>> too many Apple restrictions & without relying on VLC's flaky Wi-Fi upload.
>> 
>> I rely on magic-wormhole for this use case.  It has command-line and 
>> graphical clients for almost every platform and has never failed me.  
>> It is one of the few pieces of software that "Just Works(tm)".
> 
> On the very rare couple of occasions I've needed to trasnfer files 
> (mainly photos) between any two of MacOS, iPadOS, Andriod, I've used 
> InstaShare. It can be a bit flakey initially getting the two devices to 
> see each to connect, but otherwise works fine.

Thanks for the suggestions as all of us need to deal with iOS from time
to time in the real world (which isn't only all Apple ecosystem devices).

I appreciate hearing what's worked for other people, as we learn from that.

I've tried a handful of cross-device transfer tools at this point.
The main issue I keep running into is iPadOS itself. 

Anything that relies on local discovery (mDNS, broadcast, etc.) tends to 
behave unpredictably on iPads, so tools like LocalSend or InstaShare often 
fail to see each other even when everything should work. 

That's exactly what happened to me.

Magic-wormhole is interesting though as I hadn't considered using it for 
iPad-to-iPad transfers. I'm curious how reliable it is on iPadOS specifically, 
since the OS is pretty aggressive about suspending background network activity. 

If it really "just works," that would be a nice change of pace for iOS.

InstaShare sounds similar to what I've already tried, which is that it 
works great once the devices see each other, but getting them to see each 
other is the part that keeps failing for me.

At this point I'm mostly looking for something that doesn't depend on
AirDrop's 10-minute window, doesn't require adding contacts and doesn't 
rely on iPadOS's flaky peer-to-peer discovery. 

If magic-wormhole can bypass all that, I might give it a shot.*

Just to show that we tried multiple things before trying AirDrop, we first 
tried Wi-Fi file sharing using VLC Wi-Fi and we then tried LocalSend on 
both iPads, but the two iPads would not discover each other even though 
they both were on the same LAN.

It's not surprising that VLC didn't work reliably on large files because 
iOS throttles background network activity for sandboxed apps.

But LocalSend not working was surprising since LocalSend worked perfectly 
between Windows and the iPad, but apparently iOS blocks the discovery 
mechanism LocalSend uses.	 

LocalSend uses multicast DNS (mDNS), which, on the surface, is the same 
discovery protocol AirDrop uses, but without Apple's special privileges.

Back to comp.sys.mac.system | Previous — Previous in thread | Find similar | Unroll thread

Thread

How to transfer & play videos from a PC to an iPad using LocalSend and VLC Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-06-27 18:51 -0600
  Re: How to transfer & play videos from a PC to an iPad using LocalSend and VLC 🇵🇱Jacek Marcin Jaworski🇵🇱 <jmj@energokod.gda.pl> - 2026-06-28 04:22 +0200
    Re: How to transfer & play videos from a PC to an iPad using LocalSend and VLC Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-06-27 22:56 -0600
  Re: How to transfer & play videos from a PC to an iPad using LocalSend and VLC 🇵🇱Jacek Marcin Jaworski🇵🇱 <jmj@energokod.gda.pl> - 2026-06-28 07:25 +0200
    Re: How to transfer & play videos from a PC to an iPad using LocalSend and VLC DOMAIN INFO <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2026-06-28 06:37 +0100
      Re: How to transfer & play videos from a PC to an iPad using LocalSend and VLC 🇵🇱Jacek Marcin Jaworski🇵🇱 <jmj@energokod.gda.pl> - 2026-06-28 08:01 +0200
        Re: How to transfer & play videos from a PC to an iPad using LocalSend and VLC 🇵🇱Jacek Marcin Jaworski🇵🇱 <jmj@energokod.gda.pl> - 2026-06-28 08:25 +0200
          Re: How to transfer & play videos from a PC to an iPad using LocalSend and VLC Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-06-30 21:31 -0400
  Re: How to transfer & play videos from a PC to an iPad using LocalSend and VLC Stack Ghost <stackghost@correct.opinions> - 2026-06-30 21:19 -0700
    Re: How to transfer & play videos from a PC to an iPad using LocalSend and VLC Your Name <YourName@YourISP.com> - 2026-07-01 16:48 +1200
      Re: How to transfer & play videos from a PC to an iPad using LocalSend and VLC Maria Sophia <mariasophia@comprehension.com> - 2026-07-01 20:29 -0400

csiph-web