Google tests new look Android 14 share sheet in Chrome Beta
The share sheet on your phone is what you see when you tap the icon to share the content on your screen. It gives you all of the options available so that if you want to send content from your phone to someone else, you can choose to send it via Gmail, a text, or by posting it on a social media platform. Different apps might have different share sheets which is confusing and doesn't present the unified software experience that Google would like to offer.
In Android 14, per AndroidPolice, Google is giving developers an incentive to drop custom share sheets by allowing them to create custom app actions. Of course, Google would debut this using a Google app which in this case happens to be the Chrome Beta app. Running version 113 of the app on Android 14 Developer Preview 2 replaces the custom share sheet that would normally pop up for the app and replaces it with the regular share sheet with app actions on the top of the sheet.
So with the new share sheet, app actions like Screenshot, long Screenshot, Copy link, Send to your devices, QR Code and Print can be found at the very top of the sheet. If you share an image instead of a link, a button appears allowing the user to include a link to the image or to share the image without a link. Also limited to images being shared, the new share sheet includes an edit icon at the top of the sheet. According to tech journalist Mishaal Rahman, as many as seven app actions can be placed on the share sheet.
Sharing text on Chrome Beta with the old share sheet at left and the new one on the right. Image credit AndroidPolice
If you're running Android 14 Developer Preview 2, opening the Chrome Beta app and heading to chrome://flags/#share-sheet-migration-android will give you the option to enable a flag. Once the flag is enabled, it will stop the custom share sheet from appearing on the Chrome Beta for all versions of Android but will show the app actions version of the share sheet in Android 14.
Sharing images on Chrome Beta with the old share sheet at left and the new one on the right. Image credit AndroidPolice
In Android 14, the share sheet becomes a standalone app which means that it can be more easily updated without a full Android system update. And it also leads to speculation that there will be a standardized share sheet for Android in the new build. The public version of Android 14 could be released in August with the Android 14 Beta program kicking off later this month or next month.
If having the new version of the Chrome Beta share sheet is that important to you, we'd suggest waiting for Android 14 Beta 1 to be released (even though it will be a very unstable release) and installing the Chrome Beta app which can be found by tapping on this Google Play Store link. For the vast majority of Android users, especially those who don't use Chrome, they are probably better off waiting for the public version of Android 14 to drop.
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