How To: Share Tabs Between Devices / Send Tab to Computer
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How To: Share Tabs Between Devices / Send Tab to Computer
Update
Note that this was written far enough in the past that there is an important change to the original post, retained in full below. Setting the flags to enable the feature is no longer required. The feature is available by default, so that part can be ignored.
The screenshots and steps remain useful, however, as the process of sending a tab to another instance of Vivaldi from Android remains essentially the same. I haven't compared to verify it's exactly the same, but it's so close no obvious differences stand out.
To send a tab from the desktop, simply right-click somewhere on the page (that isn't a link, image, or other special content), and there will be an item in the context menu that appears which is used to send the page to another instance of Vivaldi.
Important Prerequisites
In order for any of this to work, both instances of Vivaldi must be actively syncing to Vivaldi's servers. What I mean is that both the installation of Vivaldi from which the tab is being sent and the target installation of Vivaldi need to be logged into the same account, and both have successfully completed the sync process in full. **Note: the status shown on the settings page does not indicate whether this is true. If the menu item for sending tabs is not displayed, use the sync internals page (
vivaldi://sync-internals
)‡ to verify the state of the sync process. You can read mor about how to do that investigation on the second page of this thread, including my post here.‡ While I have long used the address
vivaldi://sync
, and you'll see that in this thread and elsewhere on the forum, i believe that address may be deprecated in the near future as it does not work on Vivaldi Android Snapshot as of 2020.07.13.Original Post
I've seen several threads on this subject, many asking for it as a feature request, so rather than trying to reply to everyone and essentially cross-posting the same thing in several threads I decided to right this a little "How To".
There are two parts to this: accessing tabs that are open on your computer or other devices, and sending a tab to your computer or other devices.
This is all already possible in the current version of Vivaldi Mobile.
View Tabs Open on Other Devices
This is quite straightforward:
- Click on the tabs button on the bottom toolbar
- Click the cloud icon at the top, as shown in this screenshot:
Send Tab to Another Device
This requires a little setup, but once done you send tabs to other devices exactly the same way as Chrome:
- Open the flags page at vivaldi://flags
- Search for "self" and enable the flag shown below:
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After enabling the flag you will be prompted to restart Vivaldi, do so.
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Now, to send any tab to your computer or any device logged in with your account, click the address bar and choose the share button:
- Click the Send to your devices button with the Vivaldi icon and select the target device:
Open Any or All Tabs from Android on the Computer
This is the same as the first section, but in reverse. When using Vivaldi on your desktop, and the Tab bar is visible, on it there are 3 icons to initiate actions: plus creates a new tab, the trash can brings up a list of deleted tabs to reopen, and the cloud brings up a list of synchronized devices & the device name brings up a list of tabs on that other device.
From the list of open tabs on another device you can choose to open a specific tab or all of them, and they will open in new tabs.
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This post has been updated with the third section above... the ability to open any Android tab you want, from the desktop without interacting with the mobile at all.
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@bonetone it doesn't work
or do i have to be connected on both device, PC + mobile to see this option appear ?
'cause i saw a flag called : send tab to self : enable use when signed in regardless of sync state ! -
@remi-flores said in How To: Share Tabs Between Devices / Send Tab to Computer:
@bonetone it doesn't work
or do i have to be connected on both device, PC + mobile to see this option appear ?
'cause i saw a flag called : send tab to self : enable use when signed in regardless of sync state !As the description of the flag notes, your devices must be logged in to your account via sync. It can't know what devices are yours without them being logged in. Additionally, you must change the state of the flag on your Android device to enabled, the mere existence of the flag is not enough.
So be sure that both your browsers are connected to your account in the sync settings. Then enable the flag on Android, it'll prompt you to restart Vivaldi, do so with the button that appears - simply closing it and reopening it is not the same thing. Then when you click the share icon in the address bar, Vivaldi will be included among the options available for sharing the link. On your desktop, you will receive a notification to open the tab. If you have configured your system thi not allow notifications from apps, or turned off Vivaldi specifically, then that will prevent you from seeing the notification to open the link. So verify that you have those enabled if you want to use this feature.
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"Sending tab to self" from android works but there are some caveats:
- You must enable the flags on both desktop and android before sending any tabs
vivaldi://flags/#enable-send-tab-to-self
Lets you receive themvivaldi://flags/#enable-send-tab-to-self-show-sending-ui
Lets you send them- Sending on desktop shows up when you right click a page
- You will receive the tab when vivaldi next contacts the sync server
- you can force this by visiting
vivaldi://sync
and clicking "Trigger GetUpdates"
- you can force this by visiting
- The tab won't automatically open, instead you'll get a notification that you have to click in order to open it
- You must enable the flags on both desktop and android before sending any tabs
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@LonM said in How To: Share Tabs Between Devices / Send Tab to Computer:
"Sending tab to self" from android works but there are some caveats:
- You must enable the flags on both desktop and android before sending any tabs
vivaldi://flags/#enable-send-tab-to-self
Lets you receive themvivaldi://flags/#enable-send-tab-to-self-show-sending-ui
Lets you send them- Sending on desktop shows up when you right click a page
- You will receive the tab when vivaldi next contacts the sync server
- you can force this by visiting
vivaldi://sync
and clicking "Trigger GetUpdates"
- you can force this by visiting
- The tab won't automatically open, instead you'll get a notification that you have to click in order to open it
Are you certain? I am able to send tabs to my desktop and both of those flags are set to default on it... Once we clarify this I will update the OP for accuracy.
About the last point, this is desired behavior. Opening a page could potentially lead to system instability, so it is best to require user interaction to prevent pages from loading unattended.
- You must enable the flags on both desktop and android before sending any tabs
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@LonM double checking both systems... I have enabled neither of those flags on my desktop, and only the first one on mobile. With only that 1 of 4 flags enabled I can send tabs from mobile to desktop. Perhaps it is a bug that Vivaldi has different defaults than expected, but I can confirm this behavior, using stable not snapshot on desktop.
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@bonetone Maybe the flags 'default' state is 'enabled' and I just mis-understood how it works. That's entirely possible.
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@LonM I'll do some testing later today... then add the 4th case and any necessary charges to the OP.
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@LonM My time got consumed by other things but I did manage to figure out what's necessary. I'll update the OP with the 4th scenario tomorrow, but just to update you and anyone trying to share tabs in either direction...
- To share tabs from Android to another device, the only flag you need to enable is the one already in the OP.
- To share tabs from desktop (Windows tested, will test Linux later), you need to enable the second flag in LonM's reply:
vivaldi://flags/#enable-send-tab-to-self-show-sending-ui
- To receive tabs on either platform, no changes are necessary.
There might be some bug here, in that some flags aren't being honored correctly, defaults are incorrect, or whatever. As in, perhaps you should have to enable a flag to receive, or the wrong flags are being checked on one of the platforms to enable sending... this is simply the results of my testing. You only need to change on flag per platform to be able to send, it's a different flag between mobile & desktop, and both received tabs without modification. Sorry for any typos or my grammar is terrible, we checked out the new cocktail bar around the corner so I'm relying on spellcheck for this post. I'll update the OP when I've got a break tomorrow.
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@bonetone
Hi, I enabled #enable-send-to-self on mobile but the cloud slot is empty.
Test to enable all "self" flags does not work either.
Send tab from my desktop (Linux) to mobile is working.Xiaomi Mi 9T
MIUI 10 (Android 9)
Vivaldi 2.7.1624.207 SnapshotThanks, mib
EDIT: Notes and bookmark sync are disabled on mobile. -
@mib2berlin the cloud tab only shows tabs open on other devices at time of the last sync. Both devices need to be connected to your account and syncing.
Enabling the flag on Android allows you to send a tab to the desktop using the share icon that appears when you click the address bar. You need to click the restart button that appears when you enable the flag, then the send to other devices Vivaldi icon appears in the list of options when you click the share icon.
Edit: I don't know what, if any, specific sync settings need to be enabled beyond simply being connected to sync in order for tabs to sync (both the cloud icon and send tab feature). My guess would be that if any of the settings are necessary, it would be the "typed history and remote sessions" switch. Remote sessions sounds like something that would include the open tabs, but that may only be necessary, if it even is, for the cloud icon - sending tabs might still work if that is the case. But I have no insider knowledge, this is all information I've gained through testing it myself.
Unfortunately, I hit a blocking crash issue messing with a bunch of flags last night, and so now I'm trying to get my reinstall of Vivaldi Android to reconnect to sync... I have a very large bookmark collection, and it takes several hours for the initial sync before its usable and that initial sync is again hitting errors like my first install. So I have to resolve this before I can do any further testing.
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@bonetone
Hi and thanks for looking in to, take your time, it is not a major feature for me but nice to have.
I checked today with enable/disable all send flags, restart, reset sync, login to sync again and now ... I cant even see my Android device in the pull down menu "Send to ..." on my Linux and Windows 10 systems, strange.Cheers, mib
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I am able to send from Desktop to Android device but anytime I try to send from Android, Vivaldi crashes immediately.
EDIT: I figured out what I was doing wrong.... I didn't realize that I had to use the native Android Share engine. Works great! TY.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1D0KJxSpsKqksTCtDHyqNu45EzBIxqP-7/view?usp=sharing
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@LonM well it does'nt work at all for me...
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Thank you it works. The strange part is I didn't have those settings enabled and it also worked for like one day then the option to send it disappeared and I end up here to solve the issue thanks.
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This post is deleted! -
I've been noticing strange changes between what flags you have to have enabled in order for it to work or not. I've got both the Beta & the Snapshot installed on my phone and am able to send to tabs between any of my 3 currently sync'd installs (those 2 on the same phone and my desktop). But I've got every flag enabled that appears when you search for "send" that is related to sending tabs. There are a few new ones coming, that were only in the Snapshot if I recall correctly.
And I may have had to enabled 1 flag on the desktop, I'm not certain. I've been delaying updating this post as it seems to change with every update, but I'll do some testing this week and update the OP with my findings, and post a reply as well to the thread appears updated. I can probably narrow it down to which flags have to be enabled for it to work.
Edit: But, short-term work around, if you just search for "send" and enable all the flags related to sending tabs, it should work.
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Have these flags been removed recently? I'm running desktop version 2.11.1811.44 and version 2.9.1741.39 (tried 2.11.1813.3 snapshot as well) for android.
I'm able to share a tab from my mobile device to desktop. But how do I share from one desktop to another?
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@mrapan said in How To: Share Tabs Between Devices / Send Tab to Computer:
Yeah, the flags are gone as the feature is no longer experimental and just baked into the browser without having to enable it.
I'm able to share a tab from my mobile device to desktop. But how do I share from one desktop to another?
Same way you would send from your desktop to Android, I presume, I haven't been on my Linux boot recently enough so I cannot test to be sure it's still working. But just right click on the page and you should see the "Send to" links for devices that have synced recently. After a certain period of not connecting to the sync servers a device will be removed from the list.
Edit: Alternatively, you can also open tabs from other machines using the cloud icon in the tab bar.