this post was submitted on 12 May 2024
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Syncthing, a peer to peer file synchronize that basically everyone needs, they just don't know it.
It's insane how many services sell file synchronisation as a premium feature when syncthing can do it for free and no one seems to use it
I mean, true...but I don't think the average user is paying for the service rather than they're paying for not having to worry about setting up everything needed to get syncthing working.
I don't consider myself a luddite in any way, but within five seconds of reading syncthing's install instructions even I basically just said, "yeah...no." And I say that AS a nearly 12 year semi-advanced linux user. It's not that it's difficult. But difficult enough to not be worth it for the average person.
Install instructions: download tarball, unpack, run. Done.
Did I miss something?
Autostart at system startup can be done with the basic utilities of the OS.
Windows: scheduled tasks. Systemd/Linux: they have a basic service file that you just have to drop in the right folder, and run 2 commands (start, enable).
Piece of cake. Not telling this because I already know how these work, but because as I remember, these steps are documented.
Eh, there's always something people with a lot of tech knowledge think are obvious to people without a lot of tech knowledge. Just look at the mess that Linux can be.
I don't consider myself to have a lot of tech knowledge. I'm not working in the field, and there's lots of things I want to do better than now.
If you don't yet know about what is systemd and how does it work, it's fine. The documentation of the unit files is a bit more complicated than warranted, like, it's structure is not that readable, but the syncthing documentation helps in what you need to do
I guarantee that if you're here, you're very likely to be extremely tech knowledgeable (compared to the large populace)
Too bad for Apple users though
Why? It has an iOS and MacOS client, I have it running on 3 iOS devices and 2 Macs.
Mobius on ios
The best part is it works with Android as well. Whenever I turn my computer on, all my photos on my phone sync to my computer to a folder that gets regularly backed up (using Vorta which is an excellent and easy to use open source backup program for Windows, Linux, and Mac)
For images I highly recommend Immich. It's the Google Photos equivalent, and it works excellently.
I use SyncThing for documents, but photos from my phone go to Immich.
I set it up last month. I’ve rarely experienced had such a smooth setup process. Was putting it off for years because I had assumed I would need at least several hours. Right now I have one on a server and then every device syncs to it (thought it would be easy to set up backups that way)
this was my experience too. kept putting it off because I assumed I'd need to tinker a bit. didn't at all, worked immediately with only the simplest configuration. genuinely amazing, I wish my software worked that well.
Can you explain a bit more about what file synchronization is?
You know Dropbox? Google drive? OneDrive? That's file synchronisation. Files across multiple devices kept in sync by the software provider. Except in the named cases above, all your data is uploaded to their servers. With syncthing there's no cloud server, just your devices operating over the internet. So you have some backup responsibility to cover.
Caveat: I've never used syncthing and I wrote the above with a total of 10 seconds of reading their website and so it is entirely possible I'm completely wrong about everything and so I emplore you to do your research.
Ahhh makes sense, thank you kind sir! I'll take a deeper look at their site
I wish I could set it up so that I can remove a file from Computer A that's syncing to Computer B and not have the file deleted from Computer B
Haven't used this feature before, but this flag might be what you need