Who needs the cloud when you've got Sunshine?

Sunshine is a free app for sharing files directly between any Android, iOS, Windows or OS X device. No upload/ download hassles, no concerns about who else can access your files, just quickly transfer whatever you need from one system to another.

The process starts by creating a Sunshine account. Oddly, you can only do this from iOS or Android apps, but it’s simple enough -- just the usual "email, password" dialog -- and you’re ready to go.

The mobile apps make it easy to select whatever pictures or videos you’d like to send, either by selecting them individually or grouped by date.

The desktop side works a little differently, unfortunately. Instead of, say, dragging and dropping the files you need to transfer, you must instead specify up to five folders with the files you’d like to share.

Once you’re set up, there are options to send files to your own devices, to others with Sunshine accounts, or anyone else via a file sharing link. There are strict limitations here -- you can share files from your mobile device to 3 people, from your desktop to a maximum of 10 -- but that’s probably not going to be a major issue. (And if it is, cloud storage may be a better option after all.)

The transfer process is straightforward enough. You can see any connected devices and files are sent at network speeds. And as a bonus, you can even use the app to stream media to a Smart TV or any other DLNA-enabled device.

Sunshine’s interface isn’t great, there are inconsistencies, limitations, and it’s not as easy to use as it could be. But for simple media sharing between mobile devices and desktops it works just fine, and although Google Play reviews suggest problems in some situations it still scores 4 stars right now (the same at the App Store). If you don’t currently have anything similar then it’s worth a try.