Send files with
nothing but light.
Beam transfers photos and videos between phones through the camera — no internet, no Wi-Fi, no Bluetooth, no cable, no pairing. It works in airplane mode.
Crosses any air gap
Airplane mode, no signal, foreign SIM, dead Wi-Fi. If both phones have a screen and a camera, Beam works.
Nothing leaves the device
Your file travels as light. It never touches a server, a cable, or a network — not even ours.
Start looking at any moment
The sender streams until you stop it. The receiver can join mid-stream — missing a bit costs nothing but time.
Honest about speed
Optical transfer is deliberate. Beam shows you exactly how long your file will take before you commit.
Two phones. Three steps.
One person shows a code on their screen. The other points their camera at it. That's the whole protocol.
Pick what to send
Choose photos or videos and pick a quality. Beam tells you the transfer time up front — no surprises.
Show the code
The sender's screen plays an animated code — a stream of frames encoding your file with fountain-coded redundancy.
Point and wait
The receiver's camera reads the stream and rebuilds the file, saving it straight to the photo library.
Read the full explanation of how optical file transfer works →
When Beam is the only thing that works
Every other transfer method needs a network, a radio, or a cable. Beam needs a screen and a lens.
On a plane
Hand someone a photo at 38,000 feet without paying for onboard Wi-Fi or turning a single radio back on.
Abroad with no SIM
No roaming, no local data plan, no hunting for a café password. Two phones and daylight are enough.
Underground and off-grid
Metros, basements, mountains, festivals, disaster zones — anywhere the bars run out.
Networks you don't trust
Hotel and conference Wi-Fi, captive portals, corporate networks that block device-to-device traffic.
Radios switched off
Sites and workplaces where Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are disabled by policy. Beam uses neither.
Files you'd rather not upload
Nothing is uploaded, because there is nowhere to upload it to. The transfer is two devices and the air between them.
Slow is the price of the impossible
Beam does something no other app can do at all — it crosses an air gap. Here's what that costs, stated up front.
| Payload | Typical time |
|---|---|
| Small photo (400 KB) | ~17 seconds |
| Optimized photo (1.2 MB) | ~50 seconds |
| Original photo (4 MB) | ~2 min 45 s |
| Optimized video (12 MB) | ~8 minutes |
Times at the Fast profile (~24 KB/s). Propping the phones up is a first-class mode — Beam is built for the wait.
How Beam compares
Beam is not faster than the alternatives. It is the one that still works when they don't.
| Method | What it needs | Speed | Works with all radios off |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beam | A screen and a camera | ~24 KB/s | Yes |
| AirDrop | Bluetooth and Wi-Fi on, both devices Apple | Very fast | No |
| Cloud upload or messaging | Internet on both ends, an account | Depends on the link | No |
| Cable | The right cable and adapters, a free port | Fast | Yes, if you have the cable |
Use the fast options when they're available. Keep Beam for the day they aren't. AirDrop is a trademark of Apple Inc.; Beam is not affiliated with Apple.
Common questions
The things people ask before they download. Troubleshooting lives on the support page.
Can you transfer files between phones without internet or Wi-Fi?
Yes. Beam encodes the file as an animated QR stream on the sender's screen and the receiver's camera reads it back. The only channel is light between a screen and a lens, so no internet, Wi-Fi, mobile data, Bluetooth or cable is needed at any point.
Does Beam work in airplane mode?
Yes. Beam uses no radios at all, so it works with every radio switched off — in airplane mode, underground, abroad with no SIM, or on networks that block device-to-device traffic.
How fast is optical file transfer?
Roughly 24 KB per second at Beam's Fast profile, because a camera can only read so many frames per second. A 400 KB photo takes about 17 seconds; a 4 MB original photo about 2 minutes 45 seconds. Beam shows the estimate for each quality before you start.
Do both phones need the Beam app?
Yes. One phone runs Beam in send mode and shows the animated code; the other runs Beam in receive mode and points its camera at that screen. Neither phone needs a network connection, an account or a prior pairing.
Can Beam send files from an iPhone to an Android phone?
Not today — Beam is an iPhone app, so both ends are iPhones. The transfer itself is a plain optical protocol with no Apple-specific dependency, so nothing about the method is limited to one platform.
Is an optical transfer secure?
There is no network path between the two phones, so there is nothing to intercept remotely and no server-side copy to breach. The residual risk is physical: anyone who can see the sender's screen could record it. An optional PIN encrypts the stream, so a bystander's recording is useless without it.
Ready when the network isn't.
Download Beam and keep it for the day nothing else works.
Download on the App Store