from perishthethought@piefed.social to selfhosted@lemmy.world on 02 May 15:38
https://piefed.social/c/selfhosted/p/2029641/want-to-sync-files-from-linux-pc-to-android-phone
… 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:
mastodon.pirateparty.be/…/115674236291033568
#selfhosted
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what’s the problem with syncthing?
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…
Check out Resilio.
I’ve used both for 10 years now, rarely have issues with either, and I sync (with Syncthing) hundreds of gigs between about 8 devices, with about 20 different sync jobs, every day.
You do have to configure ST exactly how you want it, and know what that means.
I’ve been able to move the config 3 times now as I’ve migrated systems - you stop the service, copy the config files (ensuring the new system has the same folder structure), then start it there. Not for the faint of heart.
I do think Resilio is a little more robust, but it’s much harder on memory/battery for mobile - so much so I don’t let it just run on my phone and only use it when I want to sync specific files over (using it’s Selective Sync feature).
Hi, thanks for the tip. Resilio doesn’t seem to be open source, right? I think that is very important for me, I can not let something access my files if i can’t check what exactly does it do.
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 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.
Could use something like nextcloud as a ready made option, not the greatest for things where there’s frequent updates on large files though since it doesn’t send just partial updates. To some extent it depends on what your use case is exactly.
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?
@djdarren @frongt That's not how SyncThing is designed. It's intended to be a full mirror.
I kind of emulate what you're talking about with restic's mount command. It's a lot less intuitive than what you'd get from a cloud storage platform, but it's Good Enough For Me. If you want to match cloud storage, you probably want nextcloud or seafile or something.
Yeah, I figured as much. I do have Nextcloud on my server, and probably should get around to shifting most of what’s in my SyncThing over to it.
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.
Not really.
Resilio has a Selective Sync feature, where it keeps an index at each client, and you select which files to sync in the moment. Works very well, I use it to access (mostly) all my media files (but actually any file on my NAS).
I don’t replace Syncthing with it because it’s very memory intense (keeps the index in ram) and notably harder on battery than Syncthing.
But it works very well - it could replace Syncthing if you wanted.
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, 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)
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
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.
What are your requirements the make Syncthing not acceptable? That will help us offer other solutions.
Two other tools you can use are FolderSync on Android - it just uses standard network protocols (FTP, SFTP, SAMBA, etc), so it’s much harder on battery than Syncthing.
Resilio Sync is similar to Syncthing but works very differently. I use it along with Syncthing.
I’ll give a dumb idea, maybe KDE Connect and an rsync cron lol
Ohwow, did not know it could do that. Been using KDE Connect for years and yes, this works.
Thanks - that’s it for me. ^^^ This idea wins, y’all.
amazing lol
How’d you use rsync with kde connect?
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.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
3 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 9 acronyms.
[Thread #272 for this comm, first seen 2nd May 2026, 20:40] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
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.
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).
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).
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