Continue on PC is going away, but Microsoft Edge may fill the void

By Robert Carnevale
published

You may still be able to continue on PC without Continue on PC.

Continue on PC
Continue on PC (Image credit: Windows Central)

What you need to know

  • Continue on PC lets you easily move your mobile browser activities to your PC.
  • The feature is going away starting July 27, 2021.
  • Microsoft Edge may be poised to fill the feature void.

Continue on PC started life as a celebrated feature built around the idea of "what if you could seamlessly continue your Android or iOS web browsing activities on PC?" It's a feature that's served many people well for the past few years, but all good things must come to an end, and it looks like Continue on PC's end is July 27, 2021.

Spotted by Tom James over on Twitter, Continue on PC has received an expiration date.

See more

But all hope is not yet lost! Very recently, Microsoft Edge began testing a tab-sending feature that may replace Continue on PC's functionality.

As our news writer Sean Endicott wrote, "right now, you can only use it to send a tab from Edge (stable) on the desktop to another PC or to Edge Canary or Dev on mobile devices," proceeding to mention that he was able to send tabs from his PC to his Edge Canary-equipped Android device. However, he did say it was a hit-or-miss process that didn't resemble a finished product's execution.

Even as a work in progress that's not available to everyone (or even most people) just yet, it's worth paying attention to. It's a start on filling the void Continue on PC will be leaving. Will it be able to match the exiting feature's capabilities or exceed them? One would hope so, given that Edge is routinely trying to build its rep as the definitive browser by taking features that are already known about and improving them.

Microsoft Edge LogoContinue on Edge

 (opens in new tab)
Microsoft Edge

Keep the tabs flowing

Edge is always improving itself, and its latest tab-sending feature is a prime example of its dedication to adding features people want. While said feature is still in testing, it's bound to improve with time, as most in-progress Edge features do.

Robert Carnevale
Robert Carnevale

Robert Carnevale is the News Editor for Windows Central. He's a big fan of Kinect (it lives on in his heart), Sonic the Hedgehog, and the legendary intersection of those two titans, Sonic Free Riders. He is the author of Cold War 2395. Have a useful tip? Send it to robert.carnevale@futurenet.com.

16 Comments
  • Can someone please explain the difference between this, tab syncing, sending tabs? like why must Microsoft Microsoft and come up with 2323 ways to do the say thing along with canceling and introducing more ways to do the same thing? get a COHESIVE methodology/vision and execute it correctly!
  • One big difference is I can send a link from another app with Continue on PC. For example, I can send a post from the Reddit app. IOW, I don't have to even be using Edge. Sending or syncing tabs is much more limiting. I don't like this development at all.
  • 'Continue on PC' goes back to 2017, predates modern Edge (Chromium), and was standalone from any browser installed. It's a weird helper app and only worked OK/was difficult to explain to new users. Tab Syncing is an optional running history of open tabs across devices Sending tabs is simply a way to share a single web page with a specific device and have it open there, e.g. you're on the phone, reading something but are now at your PC you can send to the PC, which then opens and you can continue reading there (instead of looking it up in your tab history) Really, I don't see the confusion as the first one is now EOL. Sync Tabs is more comprehensive, but also, not everyone is going to enable or use it? The new share/send to feature uses a new UI, is based on Chromium, and presumes you use Edge across devices (vs installing some weird 'helper app' which Continue on PC was).
  • I've never had to 'install' anything to use Continue on PC. When I bought my Samsung phone recently and installed Edge, it was already there.
  • Same. I don't understand that comment at all.
  • Hey. Question. I was confused too... Is the "Continue on Pc" button in edges menu not this?
  • Weird helper app? Well that explains why it's going away bc I didn't know it existed... Or maybe I'm thinking of something else. Is the "Continue on Pc" button in edges menu not this?
  • As long as tab syncing or some other form of syncing/sending tabs between phone and pc exist then I don't care what it's called.
  • On android edge canary I can share any tab to a PC, and it'll open up on Edge desktop. Uses the share button at bottom of browser. Assuming I'm logged in on both. Works v well.
  • I thought "Continue on PC" WAS the feature in Edge, not some standalone app. I've only ever used the Edge feature and it sounds like that is here to stay, AS IT SHOULD! Disabling it would be like Microsoft saying, "We don't need to have time zones in the clock, let's just make everyone guess, that'll be a hoot."
  • That's the best feature I'll miss. I'm not an Edge user because it's not performing better than Chrome or FF.
  • After reading through the comments, it seems there's some definite confusion on what "Continue on Pc" is. Can we get clarity on whether this is about a Standalone helper app as Dan put it or the button in edge's menu?
  • Continue on PC is a standalone app published by Microsoft (I was just looking at it on my iPhone's App Store) that it seems was supposed to allow you to share a task or website from any browser to your PC. It is also the name of a built-in feature in the Edge mobile browser, that sends a current website you are viewing to a PC, assuming you are signed in on both the smartphone and the PC. Opening the mobile app now directs you to download Edge and informs you about the June 27 end-of-life (EOL) situation.
  • In short, it notifies your connected PC to open shared link(s) even when your system is off. It's useful whenever you want to browse something important on bigger screen but you're stuck in traffic with mobile.
  • I just downloaded the "Continue on PC" app on my iPhone about 30 minutes ago and logged in to it with my personal Microsoft account. Sharing content directly from these apps worked for me: Safari and Chrome apps (sharing websites I visited), Youversion Bible app (a verse), YouTube app (a video), Facebook app (a post), DROP app (a product page), TikTok app (a post).
    They opened up in new tabs on the default Edge browser on my PC. That didn't change when I set Firefox as my default browser. "Continue on PC" also showed up as a share target for media apps like VLC (a song), and so on, but did nothing when selected (just froze). I wasn't sure it would work, just wanted to test it. So basically it seems like anything that exists as a URL on the web in some form (not locally stored) can be shared using the "Continue on PC" app on mobile to a logged in PC. The tab-sending feature means the content has to be loaded up on Edge first. So you can share something from a mobile app to Edge, it loads in the Edge browser, then from Edge you use the "Continue on PC" (or "Send tabs") feature to push the content from Edge mobile to your PC, where it also loads in Edge.
    The questions I would ask are: Can you select multiple tabs to send to your PC all at once and they each load in a separate tab on the PC? This introduces an additional step (App->Edge on mobile->Edge on PC) for sending web-compatible content from a mobile app to PC, compared to the "Continue on PC" app (App->Edge on PC) which I just discovered and which seems quite useful. A little sad to see it go.
  • We're talking about links, but no one's mentioning that, on iOS, you CAN'T view YouTube videos in Edge, it creates yet another step to even attempt to transfer a video from a phone to a PC, and THIS was the most convenient use case for Continue on PC. There is no replacement for this on iOS, as it auto-"magically" simply opens the YouTube video in the YouTube app when attempting to "share" with Edge. This is stupid, and it's really making me go away from PCs in general, as I can go AirDrop with Macs all day. This was an AMAZING alternative (when it worked), and it's loss is far greater than syncing tabs. Microsoft is starting to become like Google, removing applications which are quite helpful for others that aren't, but force usage of cr-apps instead. This stinks!