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 both devices is something I’ve used
I also like LocalSend. Not quite as automagical as airdrop but it’s cross platform
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
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
- 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)
For sending files between a phone and a PC, I use KDE Connect.
For sending files between PCs, I use SSH.
Both are really simple and lightweight tools that normally come preinstalled, and you can use them with no configuration.
Adding to this, there’s a gnome extension so you can use KDE connect without KDE DE.
You can use KDE Connect itself without KDE.
But GSConnect shows up in the equivalent of your task bar
So does KDE Connect. It’s a standalone program that happens to also be integrated into the KDE DE.
No, not on GNOME Desktops, that’s the reason you need to install GSConnect on GNOME. If you install just KDE Connect on a GNOME system, you will not have it integrated.
Ohhhhhhhhhh
Man I need to read better
Better late than never mate ;D
KDE Connect and SyncThing
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
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…
Depends on the scenario, but I’ll use KDE Connect, NextCloud, VaultWarden send, or just go old scp.
I either use KDE Connect or Pairdrop depending on which devices I am sharing befween
