Hi everyone,
I currently use Telegram to send photos, PDFs and text messages between my Android phone and my Debian laptop. It works, but everything goes through a third-party server, and I would like a fully local, privacy-friendly alternative.
What I need: Send photos, PDFs and other files in both directions (phone ↔ laptop) Send short text messages or clipboard content Works locally
Thanks for any advice and experience!
Syncthing. Works like a charm.
LocalSend is pretty good
Second that! It does have issues on Windows, but it’s Windows so what would you expect? And it doesn’t matter to the OP anyway.
Syncthing was made for this use case.
Honestly, I would probably recommend localsend. It’s a pretty good way of transferring files between multiple devices locally. Only downside is that you have to have the app running to transfer it. You can’t just open it on one device and share to another if it doesn’t have localsend open.
Edit: Honestly though KDE connect is another great option too. Depending on your use case it could be even better than localsend.
To me this sounds like a strong advantage lol
kdeconnect
Media control and remote input too!
Browser-based P2P file sharing: https://pairdrop.net/
Cable
Me grabs a cable: “F*ck, it’s a charging only cable!”
Me grabs another cable: “F*ck, it’s USB 2 only!”
Me grabs another cable: “F*ck, the connection is dropping/flakey!”
seriously, wtf are we doing anymore. you plug in a usb cable and be done with it.
also, don’t forget the power and speed of adb vs mtp.
I feel like a giant idiot for not having thought about it for months lol
Peace be with you
I have no experience with Ubuntu or Debian, but I think the old method is still the best:
just use a good USB cable. USB 3.0 or higher is significantly faster for data transfer.
fully local, no cloud, no server. 🙂Completely agree!
My present phone, however - port is blasted and useless by now. Not too uncommon, so safe and convenient wireless options remain valuable.
KDE connect works well. You could also use something like nextcloud or SFTP and always on VPNs and whatnot. Not sure what your setup looks like.
KDE Connect
This one beats any other option mentioned by miles.
Thank you guys. I’ve been using LocalSend for a year or so, and recently I noticed it’s Documents & Data is over 1 GB on my iPhone.
To me, that means that there’s some cache you cannot remove (the only way to clear that on iOS is to remove the app: I have just tried that, and it solves the issue).
I thought KDE Connect is more bloated. Turned out, it’s just 8 MB; and it has the ability to clear cache. All my computers are on Linux (Gnome or sway: perhaps that’s why I forgot about the KDE Connect), and I thought hey, really, why not!
So, as someone who used LocalSend for a long time: it does the job, but KDE Connect is just better, it turned out.
You might be able to use War & Peace to clear the app caches. Make sure that you have less space than the space that the movie War & Peace will try to use. Try to rent War & Peace from the iTunes store. When your iPhone runs out of space, it will clear caches to try to free up enough space.
Wow, thanks, I first thought that’s some trolling (from you), but then I thought that’s some trolling (from Apple). Apparently that’s better than just give us the clear cache option.
You’re welcome. About how much space was cleared up for you?
with kde connect and gsconnect you can use Nautilus to browse files over sftp. faster than mtp if you have a hight speed wifi connection. you also get sometimes useful features of notifications, sms message access and sending.
On Gnome you can use GSConnect for integration with Gnome shell.
I use fx to access smb shares
LocalSend? https://localsend.org/
Second that. LocalSend is nice for this.
LocalSend is the best solution.
I can also reccomend KDE Connect for everything except file sharing; even though that’s the specific ask in this post, I’m just a huge evangelizer for it even if it’s file transfer as implemented is terrible in my experience.
KDE Connect can do clipboard contents, notifications, SMS from your PC, and file transfer, but I like Syncthing’s approach of folder synchronization better than sending files individually. I use both.
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KDE Connect is phenomenal! I freaking love that when I copy text on my PC or Phone it shows up on the clipboard of the other one. And being able to take real screenshots with Print Screen, crop them, and send them straight to my phone with like 3 clicks instead of taking an awkward photo of my monitor when I’m trying to text someone about something on my computer is perfect.
being able to take real screenshots with Print Screen… when I’m trying to text someone about something on my computer is perfect.
I’m surprised by this workflow instead of sending the text from the computer (using KDE connect if “text” means SMS in this context).
I did mean SMS, yes. I guess I just haven’t fully explored the options of the app yet and just saw the “send to phone” option and ran with it. Lol
i just wish it worked with Signal, GVoice. my cell # is more of a placeholder than an in-use communication endpoint.
Those have a desktop app and a web version, respectively. I can see the appeal of having everything in one place, but you can already use Signal and GVoice from your PC.
you can browse android folders from your pc as if it is a local volume, so you can copy files in bulk easily without having to keep a mirror.
Agreed, I also use both. Currently syncthing only does my password database, but heavily considering setting it up for the rest of my standard phone files too, and dropping Immich, since every time I go to check on it they have released another breaking update (or at least released several new updates and the app refuses to connect anymore) and I am tired of it.
Kde connect
Synchthing.
