Gregory Jansen 🌹🌷
Author-ized L.J.I freaking love my #SyncThing setup, it makes workflow across multiple devices on a local network — Linux and Windows desktops, an Android phone, occasionally even a Steam Deck — so easy and seamless! There's an initial learning/setup curve and at one point Windows threw a curve ball by arbitrarily switching folders around, but once you get used to the basic concepts things make sense, troubleshooting isn't too much trouble, and it's a breeze to flexibly configure folders for different uses like one-way backups (e.g. sending phone pics and footage to desktop) and two-way synchronization (e.g. keeping folders synced between desktops or between a desktop and phone).
Another neat thing I can do with SyncThing is share snippets of text easily by keeping a text file in a shared folder. I paste text into the file in one device and it's synced to the other, where it can be copy-pasted into messengers and other apps. I even send the occasional complex password this way, which I know is 😱 as a security practice to share passwords in plain text but seeing how it's just briefly on a password-secured local network before being immediately deleted across all devices, I figure the risk is minimal 🤷♀️
Robert Kingett@ljwrites Seriously, you are the best tech PR person ever! You make me wanna try things often! So Sync thing is direct peer to peer? Or I guess machine to machine? I thought it was this strange thing made by SugarSync which is like a worse Dropbox
@WeirdWriter Haha, if I can get people intrigued about Emacs of all things I know I've got the sales chops indeed! 😆
Yeah SyncThing is peer-to-peer, between machines on the same network like on the same internet router, no silliness like sending files to a server hundreds of miles away (where they can be compromised or fed to slop machines) just to share it between a computer and phone sitting next to each other! No need to fumble with data cables or ransack your drawers for a working thumb drive, just set up which folder syncs with which and bam, local wireless transfer smooth as your boyfriend's favorite vanilla bean-flavored lip balm.
I use SyncThing to sync and back up files between Arch Linux, Windows, and Android devices (Syncthing-Fork is better and less battery intensive on Android than the original Syncthing app) and haven't had trouble once I grokked its basic workings and twerkings. For example, deleting the .stfolder subdirectory in a shared folder will break synchronization, but don't panic if you do because you can simply create a blank .stfolder and it goes brrr again. Magic ✨
@ljwrites Love it! By the way, I'd do that exact password trick too if I wanna copy something to my mobile device :)
@WeirdWriter Thank you for letting me know I'm not going straight to the Ninth Circle of Technology Hell for sharing passwords as plaintext 😭 or at least we'll go together!
Jonathan Hartley@ljwrites Same! I'm syncing across Ubuntu/PopOS and Android. Have you found any useful advice or analysis about choosing a topology? I have every device link to every other, which has the nice side effect that from any device you can see a status of every other device. Because I only have a small number of devices (7 I think), and they helpfully show a "device X wants to connect!" popup when adding a new one, it's fine. But! ...
@ljwrites once in a blue moon I get a sync conflict, which generates a duplicate backup file, and my only theory as to why is that the same file change takes different routes through my devices and conflicts with itself. I should try making things star topology, see if those stop happening. I have a NAS device that could be the center node.
walnut 🌱@walnut no, I keep my password storage local. I don't log into a lot of websites across devices anyway. If I need to copy-paste a password I can paste it into a shared text file and then delete it after password entry on the other device.