A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.
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Do you have any hosting in your home lab? Preferably something for running a docker container, but a hypervisor could do the job too.
Nextcloud is an option if you do. Technically speaking you could properly protect it and make it public. You don't have to do that though. Any file you upload on your computer could be copied to your phone or vice versa. If it's public, then this could be done from anywhere.
Yes, I have a Linux vm for docker. I've chucked up a pairdrop container. So easy.
Can't say I've used that... Yet. I like nextcloud because besides being compatible with Linux/Windows and having an Android app, it also has a simple web UI to access the files. It's probably closer to self hosted OneDrive than anything else I can think of. Kinda like the simplicity of pairdrop though.
sftp
Open source file manager Material Files lets you set an SSH server as a bookmark and mount it instantly. Moving files around just like like it's native. Works seamlessly through Tailscale.
I ll just hijack this thread : when plugging my android into laptop, the laptop doesn't recognise it as anything. And the phone doesn't give me the option to "share files" instead of just charge. Does anyone knows what's wrong?
Check if your cable has data lanes, some cables don't have them and can only be used for charging. Tap the charging notification and check if you can change it to file transfer.
Had the same issue before, cable was the cause.
I use ADBFileManager https://github.com/T0biasCZe/AdbFileManager/ which is much faster than MTP
In my testing, the program copies files at speed of approximately 41.6MiB/s (332Mib/s) over USB 2.0, compared to MTP that copies at around 10Mb/s
For single files, I use qrcp
For a single file, I just use Bluetooth. For a lot of files, or a really big file, I plug my phone into the PC and set it to storage device.
I use KDEConnect. I don't know about iPhone but it works with Android, Linux and Windows.
I have tried to use KDEconnect over and over, It doesn't work on my work network, it doesn't work on most of my home network, If my laptop my cell phone come up as different IPs it gets confused. It's discoverability is just absolutely horrible except for a select number of plain vanilla networks.
Damn that sucks :(. Seems to me I have to disable my VPN in order to discover devices, but I can re-enable it afterwards. I use it mostly for clipboard sharing between devices.
My home network is split between wired and wireless, they're on different IP ranges. I have every proper forwarding protocol and UDP sniffing everything set up so that devices can talk to each other across subnets.
It refuses.
So at home I can set it up on Linux to use a static IP to find my phone. And the phone kind of deals with it and works most of the time. But then I go to work and my IPs are the two devices change. Then I'm SOL.
Also if I'm home and I'm roaming onto one of my other networks to talk to security cameras or something it's incapable of talking to my PC.
Honestly it's discovery is just bad for me. I really wish that it's supported a list of IPs, or gave me some kind of client I could run in concert with tail scale or I could move s*** around it's just absolutely inflexible and for no good reason.
I mean, the fastest method is likely to just plug the phone into PC and pretend it's a flash drive?
From memory MTP is pretty flaky and quite slow.
ADB push is pretty good but at that stage rsync is just as easy.
Put SSH in the phone and you can do it all from the computer too.
MTP's not bad anymore. It works perfectly well in Windows Linux and Mac these days and is as fast as anything else.
Oh good to know.
It used to be awful but I'm glad to hear it's improving.
I don’t know if it is always the fastest. I know they said android, but for example on not too old Apple phones (pre-usb c), I had the impression you could get better throughout on wifi compared to a cable connection. Maybe that’s just apple trying to squeeze money on proprietary connectors, but other manufacturers seem to copy their worst takes sometimes though.
I'll add in Bitwarden Send (including self-hosted vaultwarden), although probably doesn't make sense if you're not already using it for password management.
A cable
I'm not sure if there's one the best tool, depending on a case, I use mix of
SFTP or Matrix
Syncthing is fast. I have an IPv6 setup too which seems to help.
I have my downloads directory on my desktop linked to a downloads directory on my Android; you can't link to the real Android downloads directory anymore so I use another.
When the file is removed from the desktop downloads directory it disappears from mobile.
I tried using Bluetooth between them but it's more fiddly than Syncthing with my config. Switch Bluetooth on on desktop, connect to desktop, send file, disconnect, move file. Whereas Syncthing is always on.
However, before I started using Obsidian notes I used to transfer URLs using Signal's Note-to-self thing. Signal on both desktop and mobile.
Obviously, I sync between mobile and desktop Obsidian using Syncthing.
I usually use kde connect.
I use a Gnome implementation of this and it works great too.
Yeah, me too. It is quick and easy. I use SyncThing for things I want to keep synced.
KDE Connect also works on Gnome, Windows and Android. I can't recommend it enough. Transfering a single image from phone to PC is instantaneous
And having a unified clippboard is just so convenient
Does your PC have Bluetooth? Definitely quick and sort of self hosted.
I use SyncMe which synchronizes smb shares to your phone. It's great once you have it set up, but it does take a little setup. Gotta have shares and whatnot.
You got some good replies and I personally am enamored by LocalSend, it is worth checking it out.
However, there is a simple way if a) you use whatsapp and b) the devices involved have access to whatsapp.
This involves not just sending files but you can send text and whatever whatsapp supports and you'll have a history of these chats should you need to have them later again. Probably possible with other platforms but I use whatsapp so that is what I setup for information transfer to myself.
The thing you want to do is create a chat group, add a friend for a very brief moment, remove said friend again after they accepted, enjoy your private group where you can dump any and all info into and pick up from wherever you have whatsapp available. The trick is to add a friend for a couple of seconds. If you create a group you are automatically in it but you cannot use it until you add someone else, then it becomes active and use-able. The fact that you end up alone in that group does not make it unavailable again. Weird but it works.
Hah. Nice hack!
Also, I love red dwarf.