I just had to email me a file I got sent to my phone and I feel unable to accept this as the better solution.
What you do guys use for inter-device communication?
Localsend
On the same network with device discovery localsend can be a good alternative.
It works on most devices, even IOS IIRC
Oh, its on F–droid!
Yes and basically everywhere else you need it
PC to phone:
- USB cable
- KDE Connect
- Nextcloud
- Syncthing
PC to PC:
- USB drive
- SFTP
- SSH
- Nextcloud
- Syncthing
Phone to PC:
- USB cable
- KDE Connect
- Nextcloud
- Syncthing
KDE Connect can do all three of these.
I’m aware, but some devices I use regularly like an iPhone, work computer, etc, are limited in their capacity to run it.
KDE Connect and SyncThing
yes clipboard sharing and single file transfer is with KDE connect king
and Keepass and obsidian an photos with syncthing
- syncthing (file synchronization)
- kdeconnect (file transfers, clipboard sharing, presentation remote)
- deskflow (keyboard and mouse sharing)
- warpinator (one off file sharing)
- rsync / scp (one off file copies / backups)
Everyone else mentioned most of what I would suggest.
One is missing for your original problem. Localsend. Think airdrop but cross platform. Super useful if you have a mix of devices (iOS, android, windows, etc…)
Syncthing for everything: file transfers, backing up phone photos, synced obsidian vaults, etc.
Nextcloud
For phone <-> PC I use localsend. If I do PC to PC, possibly even large amounts of files or large files in general I put them on a network drive specifically intended for that purpose
Depends on the scenario, but I’ll use KDE Connect, NextCloud, VaultWarden send, or just go old scp.
Taildrop if you use Tailscale.
<offtopic> It’d be nice if there’s a Syncthing built into Tailscale or some of the mesh VPN solutions. Taildrop is good but it’s not entire directory sync with proper conflict resolution.
Surely I can use Syncthing inside Tailscale but 1. I have to depend on their public discoservers, or 2. I have to host and configure the discoserv myself for every client which is tedious to do </offtopic>
In syncthing you can configure ip of a device and you can turn off discovery. You can add devices by id or scanning qr of the id. I have been using that for years since I didn’t want third party servers in the equation…
You can selfhost discovery, no problem. https://docs.syncthing.net/users/stdiscosrv.html
For files I use syncthing (also for music/photos/notes/etc… syncing files is IMHO the way to go wherever applicable).
For sending links to my PC (eg. articles linked from podcasts’ notes) I used to rely on firefox sync, but I’m starting to distance myself from Mozilla so I am gonna experiment with wallabang.
For sending small notes to myself (stuff that I want to sort or act upon when I get to my PC), I’m using signal’s “note to self” but I’m investigating alternatives because signal doesn’t mark such messages as unread and so sometimes I forget I’ve sent some.
Yep. For folders where I want access quick access to everything in the folder, SyncThing is best.
Starting to dabble with KDE Connect for one-off file transfers where SyncThing is overkill
where SyncThing is overkill
I just have a dedicated shared folder between my phone and desktop and drop oneoff stuff there (it’s also easier to script this way)
Most of the time I use Nextcloud. If I can’t wait for the file to sync I’ll use either email or a jump drive depending on which devices I’m moving data between. I
If I remember that I can, I’ll occasionally use bluetooth to send from my phone to one of my computers.
magic wormhole
FilePizza
