Android's story with the share menu is long, messy, and complicated. Things have gotten relatively better in Android 10, but that hasn't stopped some app developers from implementing a non-native share sheet. This is especially true for Google's own apps, like Photos, YouTube, Maps, and News. Chrome might soon join the fray with its own sharing hub.

The new share menu is still in development. It doesn't seem to be visible by default for any users and several of its features aren't fully functional yet. To enable it, you need to be using Chrome Canary and go to chrome://flags/#chrome-sharing-hub and turn that on. Another related flag to enable is chrome://flags/#chrome-share-screenshot. Restart the browser and you should get the new sheet when you choose to share a page.

Left: Flags to enable. Middle: New sharing hub. Right: Scroll to get to "More."

Similarly to Photos, News, and Maps' special share sheets, Chrome's is divided into two sections: the top one has Chrome-specific actions, the bottom one lets you share to other apps. Scrolling on the latter reveals the "More" option which opens Android's default share menu.

The top row is the most interesting bit here. It's home to the link copying option, the recently-added send to device feature, as well as the upcoming QR code generator and screenshot editor. Currently, only the first two are functional. The QR code generator opens a new page for sharing and scanning codes, but nothing works yet. Edit: The scanning feature works, you just need to give Chrome the Camera permission, even if it doesn't ask you for it. (Thanks, Moshe!) Tapping on the screenshot editor doesn't do anything either.

Left & Middle: Sharing and scanning a QR code. Right: 'Send to device' menu.

We'll keep an eye on this new sharing hub and see how it evolves with time. The QR code generator isn't all that interesting, but the screenshot feature is intriguing. Not that we need more hidden screenshot editing options in Android, but I wonder if you'd be able to crop part of the page beforehand, or if scrolling screenshots could be possible.

Chrome Canary (Unstable) Developer: Google LLC
Price: Free
4.4
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