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!
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.
kdeconnect
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!”
Browser-based P2P file sharing: https://pairdrop.net/
KDE Connect
This one beats any other option mentioned by miles.
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. 🙂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.
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.
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.
I use local send. It’s fantastic
Syncthing is local and doesn’t use a cloud. It will sync directories between a linux machine and an android phone.
the desired use is not a good use case for syncthing. i use it for things like syncing my game saves between computers or anything that works like dropbox.
it is overkill for one-off file transfer and creates a dependency that probably is not desired. if mirroring is the need, then it is the right tool - if you don’t have your own NAS with a drive/dropbox service, which is just cleaner.
Do you use the Syncthing-Fork F-Droid app for android?
Syncthing
Onionshare should work. You temporarily (or longer if desired) turn a folder/s into an onion site, which you can use to share between computers, not limited to just your own but also to others you give the key to.
