Set Up a Persistent Wi‑Fi Direct Group on Android (No Root)

Step 1 – Enable Developer options and USB debugging

1. Open Settings → About phone.
2. Tap Build number seven times until you see the message “You are now a developer”.
3. Return to the main Settings page and open System → Developer options (the path may differ on Samsung – Settings → Developer options directly).
4. Toggle USB debugging on and confirm the prompt.

Why this matters: ADB needs the debugging flag to accept commands from your PC. Without it the device will ignore every adb request.

Step 2 – Install and verify ADB on your computer

1. Download the Platform‑Tools zip for your OS.
2. Extract the folder to a convenient location (e.g., C:\adb or ~/adb).
3. Open a terminal / command prompt and navigate to the extracted folder.
4. Run adb version – you should see something like Android Debug Bridge version 1.0.41.

If the command is not recognized, add the folder to your system PATH or always run it from the folder directly.

Step 3 – Connect the phone and confirm the link

1. Connect the phone to the PC with the USB cable.
2. On the phone, you may see a prompt “Allow USB debugging?”. Tap Allow. You can also tick “Always allow from this computer” to avoid future prompts.
3. In the terminal, execute adb devices. The output should list a device serial number followed by device.

   List of devices attached
   0123456789ABCDEF    device

If the device shows as unauthorized, re‑grant the permission on the phone.

Step 4 – Create a Wi‑Fi Direct group via ADB

Android provides a hidden cmd wifi interface that can start a Wi‑Fi Direct group. The command works on stock Android and on most OEM skins, though the exact syntax may vary slightly between versions.

1. Run the following command to start a group and make the device the group owner (GO):

   adb shell cmd wifi p2p create-group

2. If the command succeeds you will see no output, but the group is now active. To confirm, run:

   adb shell dumpsys wifi_p2p

   Look for a line similar to Group Owner: true and an SSID like DIRECT-xx-MyPhone.

Why we use the cmd wifi p2p interface: It bypasses the UI and creates the group directly, which is necessary for persisting the group later.

Step 5 – Make the group persistent across reboots

Android stores the persistence flag in the global settings database. Setting this flag tells the Wi‑Fi stack to keep the group alive after a reboot.

1. Enable persistence with the following command:

   adb shell settings put global wifi_p2p_persistent 1

2. Optionally, you can give the group a custom SSID and passphrase so you don’t have to remember the auto‑generated one:

   adb shell settings put global wifi_p2p_ssid "MyDirectGroup"
   adb shell settings put global wifi_p2p_passphrase "StrongPass123"

   These keys are read the next time the system restores the group.
3. Reboot the device to test persistence:

   adb reboot

4. After the phone boots, run adb shell dumpsys wifi_p2p again. You should still see the group listed and the SSID you set.

Note: Some OEMs (e.g., certain Xiaomi or Huawei ROMs) disable the global setting for security reasons. If the group disappears after reboot, the device simply does not support persistent groups without rooting.

Step 6 – Share files using the persistent group

With the group running, any Android device that supports Wi‑Fi Direct can join it. The built‑in file manager makes the process straightforward.

1. On the second device, open Settings → Connections → Wi‑Fi Direct (the exact path may differ).
2. Tap the SSID you set in Step 5 (e.g., MyDirectGroup) and enter the passphrase if prompted.
3. Once the devices are connected, open the file manager on the primary device, select the files you want to share, tap the Share icon, and choose Wi‑Fi Direct as the target.
4. The receiving device will show a transfer dialog; accept it to start the copy.

Because the group is persistent, you can repeat step 6 any time without recreating the group.