Worml is an insanely simple peer-to-peer file sharing app for Mac

Worml works a lot like AirDrop, the file sharing app that comes built-in to OS X Lion. But instead of being limited to just local WiFi networks, it will allow you to send and receive files to and from any computer anywhere.

Worml [$4.99, Mac App Store] is simple from the start. You just install the app, sign up for an account and add a friend who also has Worml to your account list. The icon for Worml appears in your Mac’s menu bar.

To send a file, just click on the icon, choose a recipient and an animated portal appears on your Mac’s desktop. Now all you have to do is drag and drop a file into the wormhole and off it goes to the recipient. Plant Based Software has also done some magic to allow it to work through firewalls and on 3G hotspots as well.

The files aren’t uploaded to a cloud service, they are transferred across from your machine to theirs, this cuts down significantly on the transfer times from a service like Dropbox.

If you’re trying to send a file to someone who doesn’t have Worml, you can still use it to transfer files, just choose the ‘Public Link’ option from the menu and you’ll get a special portal that gives you a link you can email or paste into a message. Simple.

The preferences allow you to choose whether a portal closes after a transfer completes and whether a file opens up automatically. You can even have it spot check to see if that file already exists on your Mac.

You can also assign keyboard shortcuts to specific contacts. There are a bunch of sneaky uses for this like sharing screenshots or songs playing in iTunes.

But other than that there is very little to it, it simply does exactly what it says. As a one-time purchase it’s a pretty fantastic deal because most other services like this have file size limits or transfer quotas unless you purchase a premium subscription.

There are a few things that I would love to see added as Worml goes on. The portal sizes need to be adjustable, especially for laptop sized screens. I’d also like to see ‘close’ buttons on hovering the portals as it would make for a quicker way to get rid of them than using the menu to un-toggle a recipient.

Aside from that, I’ve been using Worml for several weeks now and it has some awesome potential as a collaborative tool. There really isn’t many ways I’ve found to simply share files p2p.

I spoke with Plant Based about some of the server issues I’ve seen as they released publicly and they said that it is largely a ‘growing-pains’ issue and they’re working to scale the servers to handle connection routing through firewalls, but a large number of users seem to be using it just fine.

If you share documents, images or any other kind of file incessantly throughout the day, I’d suggest you take a look at Worml as a serious option. It’s available for $4.99 for a limited time on the Mac App Store now, where it is currently featured by Apple.