… without using any variation of Syncthing.
My phone is usually on the same Wifi network as my PC, so some sort of auto-syncing via wifi would be great. Like how Immich syncs from the phone to my server, in an almost totally hands-off way.
What are the best non-Syncthing FOSS phone and PC file sync options these days?
Thanks!
ETA: Sorry, sorry, I should have explained: I no longer trust any variant of Syncthing. The wild chain of events last year left me completely questioning what was going on with that code base. I struggle with trust issues for FOSS software every so often and once I feel things have gone awry, I can’t go back again. Plus, I really want to know about what’s new and interesting right now.
Link to one conversation about Syncthing’s events, if you are out of the loop:
https://mastodon.pirateparty.be/@surfhosting/115674236291033568
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It’s not auto-syncable but PlainApp works great for me. Only needs a phone app installed, works in the browser on a lappy/PC
I too use Nextcloud & Joplin on all my machines. I also have LocalSend on desktops & phone as another option for quickly firing something over. Because I’m a nerd I also keep a copy of LocalSend portable on my keyring flash drive “just in case I need it” (I’ll almost certainly never need it).
Syncthing is a really great peer-to-peer file sync for me. If you want something like Immich (which uses a server), but for general files, there’s a bunch of options. I use Nextcloud, but there’s many others that are smaller in size (since Nextcloud is pretty big).
Syncthing is almost always the best option. You’ll have to explain what about it is unacceptable if you want the best alternative.
I’ve used SyncThing for over a year from Graphene to, well, any computer I have. But I’ve never been able to work out: is it possible to set ST so that it doesn’t take up space on a device, like how cloud storage platforms do?
No, I currently use Syncthing to sync my documents and music folders between my devices. If there’s something else, like the clips I make when playing with friends, the computer automatically syncs them to my Seafile instance with their sync client.
That way I can easily share the folder and check it on my phone using the app. If you don’t encrypt the drive it will show up and be navigable in your files app, without taking space (at least if you use the stock gos files app)Maybe set up an SMB share or something? I’m generally happy with syncthing, but every now and then I do just want to dump files off device. For that I keep a share running over Tailscale (Headscale soon™) and use that in a pinch.
No. For that you probably want some kind of cloud drive client like Nextcloud. Seems like it supports that scenario, but I’ve never used it and their Android app docs link is broken.
Can’t mount networked filesystem’s in android, but you can use a file browser app to emulate the same thing.
what’s the problem with syncthing?
I am assuming this is referring to the recent drama around syncthing-fork, which made a lot of people question its safety.
But in the meantime another app called BasicSync jumped into that gap.
First I’m hearing of BasicSync. Thanks for mentioning it.
Be careful when you set it up. Make sure to enable file system access before you start syncing. I think it got fixed in the release a few days ago, but before that BasicSync thought without file system access that you had an empty folder and deleted all files on the remote directory. Happened to me.
Other than that it works as expected, quite happy with it.
It’s a little wonky getting it set up at first, but once it’s going it’s fine.
Android file permissions are goofy.
I always have issues with syncthing. Either when I am changing devices which would be okay, but oftentimes i find out it didnt sync for a long time and i always have to open the app on the phone and web interface on the computer to start it up again. Not sure why… So I am in market for alternatives as well…
The only problem I’ve has is when a file or folder name contained certain emoji. Some worked, some didn’t. No idea why. So I just renamed them and everything was fine.
i put stuff on a nextcloud (a paid hosting) and sync via that eg my Joplin data etc. I don’t use Syncthing. I have nothing against Syncthing, I have just not needed it.
I also occasionally use LocalSend to transfer one off files, but KDE connect has plenty of options in that respect as well.
https://f-droid.org/packages/com.chiller3.basicsync
There is a new fork of syncthing. It aims to be minimal with most of the heavy lifting done by the familiar web gui
I just looked into this. Am I right to guess that it still needs Syncthing on my PC to connect to?
Yes
my solution for android file sync is always rsync with termux. i just have a shell script for my desired operation and have the shortcut on my home screen using termux widgets. it’s not automatic but i just run it periodically when i make some changes and want to sync.
I am currently looking into openCloud and also web dav. Disadvantage is that both are kinda like mounted drives on Android and not all apps can access that for some reason.