hpr4397 :: Transfer files from desktop to phone with qrcp

Use a QR encoded URL to quickly share a file on your local network

Hosted by Klaatu on Tuesday, 2025-06-10 is flagged as Clean and is released under a CC-BY-SA license.
phone, qr, httpd, netstat. 4.

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Duration: 00:09:17
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general.

How does it work?

A terminal showing the command, a url and a ascii rendered qrcode

qrcp binds a web server to the address of your Wi-Fi network interface on a random port and creates a handler for it. The default handler serves the content and exits the program when the transfer is complete. When used to receive files, qrcp serves an upload page and handles the transfer.

The tool prints a QR code that encodes the text:

http://{address}:{port}/{random_path}
Most QR apps can detect URLs in decoded text and act accordingly (i.e. open the decoded URL with the default browser), so when the QR code is scanned the content will begin downloading by the mobile browser.

(Notes taken from https://github.com/claudiodangelis/qrcp released under the MIT license.

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Comment #1 posted on 2025-06-18 23:14:12 by Laindir

The perfect kind of recommendation

This is exactly the kind of clever little utility that it wouldn't occur to me to search for. Solves a common problem in a really neat way. And I would never know about it except being told by someone who uses it. Great show!

Comment #2 posted on 2025-11-18 19:04:43 by Ken Fallon

I knew this would come in handy

I ran into two issues using it which `qrcp --help` allowed me to get around.

The first was which of the many network interfaces to bind to, `--bind 192.168.0.123`, and the next was to fix a port so I could open a firewall port and not have to change it for the next files `--port 43210`

Don't forget to then open a port on your firewall, `43210` in my example.

Comment #3 posted on 2025-11-19 20:53:10 by candycanearter07

issues with qrcp...

I remember having a lot of issues with qrcp on corporate networks where like it doesnt let you connect to other devices directly, i'd personally reccomend something like 0x0.st over qrcp for a lot of cases as long as you know how curl works

Comment #4 posted on 2025-11-20 11:35:22 by Ken Fallon

qrcp is private 0x0.st is not

Even if you trust what people say on their sites about keeping it private, it still is putting your files into the public domain in some form or another. The site can be compromised, or can be ordered to disclose your information by the local authorities.

Even if that were the case that this did not occur, on a corporate network it's also very likely our out and inbound traffic is also been analyzed.

Using qrcp keeps it local, and that means transfer is as fast as it can be, but it also means it never goes out.

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