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.
Browser-based P2P file sharing: https://pairdrop.net/
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.
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. 🙂Syncthing was made for this use case.
LocalSend is pretty good
kdeconnect
Synchthing.
Ich nutze “Relay”(das ist ziemlich neu) oder KDE-Connect. Die funktionieren ähnlich gut.
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.
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.
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.
KDE Connect is super convenient
i use copyparty, connecting thru browser. but i also still use telegram saved messages like you because having a timeline helps my workflow. i wonder if there’s an alternative to that.
Kde connect
