Setup

Set up Snap2PC

Everything happens on the PC that should receive your documents. It takes about two minutes, and the phone app is free.

1. Install it on the PC

Download the installer and run it. It installs to C:\Program Files\Snap2PC, adds the firewall rule it needs, and starts automatically when you sign in. Windows 11 is required.

If Windows warns you

This appears because the installer is new and has not yet built up a reputation with Microsoft SmartScreen — not because anything is wrong with it. It is worth saying plainly rather than hoping you do not notice: it is the step most people stop at.

2. Choose where documents should go

When it first runs, Snap2PC asks which folders your phone is allowed to send to. Pick the ones you actually file into — a client folder on the desktop, a folder on a network share, whatever you already use. You can add more later.

This is the part that does the work. Documents arrive already named and already in the right folder, so there is nothing to rename and nothing to drag anywhere.

3. Pair your phone

1. On the PC, find the Snap2PC icon in the system tray — bottom right, next to the clock. You may need to click the small arrow to show hidden icons.
2. Click it and choose Pair a phone. A QR code appears on screen.
3. On the phone, open Snap2PC and tap Pair, then point the camera at the QR code.

That is the whole setup. The code is good for three minutes and works once — if it expires, just show another.

Scanning the code off the screen is also what makes the connection private. The keys travel over light rather than over the network, so nobody sitting on your Wi-Fi can intercept or substitute them. There is more on this in Security.

If the phone cannot find the PC

Three things account for nearly every case.

• They are on different networks. The phone and the PC must be on the same Wi-Fi. A guest network usually stops devices from seeing each other even though both have internet.
• A VPN is running on the phone. A VPN can route the app's traffic away from your local network, so the PC becomes invisible even though both devices are connected. Allowing local network access in the VPN app, or excluding Snap2PC from it, usually fixes this. The app will tell you when it detects one.
• The PC is asleep, or nobody is signed in. Snap2PC runs as part of your Windows session, which is what lets it write to network shares using your own permissions. It is not running at the sign-in screen. Documents you send are not lost — they wait on the phone and go by themselves once the PC is available again.

Accounts

For your own documents you do not need one. The app works straight away as a guest, and personal use on your own network is free for a limited time.

Businesses register, because that is what lets a PC accept documents only from people it recognises and puts a name against each delivery. Whoever set Snap2PC up for your firm creates an invite code, which you enter once on the phone. Commercial use is free for the first month, then $9.99 per receiving PC per month — see pricing.

Installing across an organisation

The installer is an Inno Setup package and takes the usual switches, so it deploys from an RMM without anyone touching the machine:

Snap2PC-Setup.exe /VERYSILENT /NORESTART /SUPPRESSMSGBOXES

The firewall rule is added during the elevated install, so no prompt appears for the user. Note that the rule is bound to the installed program path — running a copy from somewhere else means inbound connections are silently dropped, which looks exactly like a switched-off PC.

Snap2PC runs in the user's session rather than as a Windows service. That is deliberate: a service running as LocalSystem has no user network credentials and cannot write to a UNC path without a domain service account. Running in the session means it inherits the signed-in user's share permissions with nothing to configure.

Still stuck?

Email [email protected] and say what you saw.