Syncthing Android app discontinued

Submitted ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨chaospatterns@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨selfhosted@lemmy.world⁩

https://forum.syncthing.net/t/discontinuing-syncthing-android/23002

Announcement by the creator: forum.syncthing.net/t/…/23002

Unfortunately I don’t have good news on the state of the android app: I am retiring it. The last release on Github and F-Droid will happen with the December 2024 Syncthing version.

Reason is a combination of Google making Play publishing something between hard and impossible and no active maintenance. The app saw no significant development for a long time and without Play releases I do no longer see enough benefit and/or have enough motivation to keep up the ongoing maintenance an app requires even without doing much, if any, changes.

Thanks a lot to everyone who ever contributed to this app!

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Comments

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makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Oh my goodness! Syncthing without Android leaves me screwed. My whole digital life revolves around it.

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- imsodin@infosec.pub ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Oh don’t worry to much, mine too: If there wasn’t an alternative for syncthing on android, I might have kept it on lifesupport :)
  
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  - fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    What is this alternative of which you speak?
    
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  - Atemu@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    What’s the history behind this? Why could the changes be done upstream, necessitating a fork?
    
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- sunbunman@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Mine too!
  
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- MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  FolderSync is a good alternative, more battery friendly too!
  
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imsodin@infosec.pub ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I am not the creator, funnily that is/was one of the Lemmy creators: Nutomic :)
I am a syncthing co-maintainer that kept the android app on life support since a while.

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- Harimau@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Thank you for all of your hard work!
  
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- Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  THANK you for the hard work! Your app is part of my phone photo and appdata backup.
  
  Side question: Will you continue with a fork for f-droid?
  
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  - imsodin@infosec.pub ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    As the statement says I wont - it will be fully discontinued. This statement applies to the official app. It doesn’t say anything about other apps or forks. All the code is free.
    
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- ultrahamster64@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Thank you for your work!!!
  
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- uis@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  funnily that is/was one of the Lemmy creators: Nutomic :)
  
  Plot twist
  
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xodoh74984@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
This is sad. Google Play should never hold this weight the self hosted community. For Android users dedicated to open source software, F-Droid is the target.

I don’t think SyncThing users would have much issue with the app disappearing from Google. Doing away with Google is the goal.

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- absGeekNZ@lemmy.nz ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  The problem is not “Syncthing users” it is the others that we bring along with us.
  
  I already have F-Droid on my phone, but the dozen others that I have promoted Syncthing to over the years do not. This is going to cause a bunch of problems.
  
  This is much more important than what you portray here.
  
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  - tychosmoose@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    That and the shrinking ability to grant access to device storage. If that becomes an option only on rooted phones (which seems like the directly Google is heading) it will make the audience for such an app much smaller.
    
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  - t_378@lemmy.one ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    The point you raise reminds me of when Signal dropped SMS support, after my efforts to convert all the non techie people in my life over to it. So sad when it happens…
    
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- CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  As much as I want to use F-Droid, my work blocks all third party app stores so it’s either have access to my work stuff on one phone (via profiles) or dual wield two phones.
  
  I lack the patience to dual wield again. It’s very annoying.
  
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  - Atemu@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Your work dictates what you are allowed to install on your personal phone? That’d be a serious overstepping of bounds.
    
    Perhaps you can sneak in f-droid via adb install and give it app installation permissions via ADB too though.
    
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  - derin@lemmy.beru.co ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I’m annoyed to see you getting down voted - I had a similar issue years ago with my work MacBook (couldn’t run a custom WM because any modification to the Finder was blocked without putting the machine into “unsafe” mode).
    
    I love OSS, but without a verifiable way to distribute it large swaths of the workforce won’t be able to use it.
    
    F-Droid is great, but sadly it isn’t enough.
    
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- fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  They said somewhere that the play store thing is not the reason, it’s just one of the more recent issues.
  
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- interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  They’re a cloud company, their mission statement is to eradicate us. It’s like IT trying to stamp out shadow IT.
  
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Churbleyimyam@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I’ve installed it from F-droid but still. Fuck google. They really do need breaking up.

I heavily rely on Syncthing. Does anyone know what the outlook is for Syncthing-fork, or what the likelihood is of someone taking on maintenance of this version?

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- iturnedintoanewt@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  The way i understand it, this stops maintenance for Syncthing, but Syncthing-fork in fdroid will continue its development and support as usual. Both show if you do a Syncthing search in fdroid. The fork is more up to date with features.
  
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  - Churbleyimyam@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Peachy. Sounds like there’s nothing to worry about then (from a user POV).
    
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- Auli@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Yah I mean the notice for the storage access has only been five years. How can they do that.
  
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el_abuelo@programming.dev ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I just installed syncthing-fork from f-droid and it worked flawlessly as far as I can tell:

“Export” in syncthing

Uninstall syncthing

Install syncthing-fork from f-droid

Import in syncthing-fork
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- Unbecredible@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I feel the existence of an “export” option in a piece of software is noble in this day and age, and I’m so appreciative of it.
  
  It says “look, I don’t WANT you to go to my competitor, but I’m not gonna try to hold your data hostage to prevent it.”
  
  It’s class, as the Scottish would say.
  
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  - dan@upvote.au ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Open source software doesn’t have a reason to lock you in like proprietary software does :)
    
    More and more proprietary SaaS systems are allowing data exports now, to comply with laws like the GDPR “right to know”. Say what you want about Google and Facebook, but they were the first big companies to start allowing data to be exported before there was any law requiring it - Facebook in 2010 and Google in 2011.
    
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  - Dasnap@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I’ve said for a while that platforms that allow you to easily move make me more comfortable using them, and ironically, more likely to stay around.
    
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- stardust@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Did it transfer over your folder setups so you don’t need to set it up manually?
  
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  - el_abuelo@programming.dev ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Yes
    
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- twotonebax@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Thank you for this :)
  
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- ArtVandelay@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Ty! Can confirm this worked for me as well.
  
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BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Hoping it remains viable for a long time without updates. Syncing my KeePass database is really key for me. I need to fluidly add and read passwords from at least 3 devices.

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- stepan@lemmy.cafe ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  With today’s BitWarden drama, I planned to use KeePass with SyncThing for like an hour before seeing this :(((
  
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  - OhVenus_Baby@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I use bitwarden. Are they not good anymore? Data Breach?
    
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- bastion@feddit.nl ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Syncthing-fork on fdroid.
  
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- iturnedintoanewt@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  The way i understand it, this stops maintenance for Syncthing, but Syncthing-fork in fdroid will continue its development and support as usual. Both show if you do a Syncthing search in fdroid. The fork is more up to date with features.
  
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- absGeekNZ@lemmy.nz ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  This is one of the many things I use Syncthing for.
  
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- Petter1@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Is webDAV not good enough for that? I use keepass via webDAV feature of the nextcloud (I know some think it is bloated) but I guess there are other lightweight webDAV solutions…
  
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  - DrDystopia@lemy.lol ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I’ve used both. NC android app doesn’t sync and one needs to host the entire platform. When using generic webDAV one still needs a dedicated sync solution.
    
    I self host NC and still prefer SyncThing for keeping my KeePass database updated and fresh across devices.
    
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ma1w4re@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
OH NO, I hope the fork will continue for a bit otherwise I’m so cooked 🥶🥶🥶

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- original_reader@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Agreed. Horrible news.
  
  Hoping Syncthing-Fork will continue.
  
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Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Just got into using Syncthing for my home network, was thinking I should add it to my phone. Makes sense it dies the instant I consider it

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- MiltownClowns@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  this is your fault.
  
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  - Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I’m a fucking albatross, I know… Or whatever that sailor’s curse bird is I forget. A crested wank.
    
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- iturnedintoanewt@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  The way i understand it, this stops maintenance for Syncthing, but Syncthing-fork in fdroid will continue its development and support as usual. Both show if you do a Syncthing search in fdroid. The fork is more up to date with features.
  
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- 1984@lemmy.today ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Lol, I was also looking at installing it last weekend.
  
  I guess this thing is on the same connection as my stock choices.
  
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  - Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    My advice is to be less like me
    
    It seems to be working for other people
    
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- DrDystopia@lemy.lol ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Consider yourself lucky, I feel the pain of seeing the end of years of a loving relationship.
  
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fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
God this is sad.

The parts of tech that are useful and elegant are contracting, while subscriptions and ads just get more obnoxious.

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Moonrise2473@feddit.it ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Does anyone know why it was forked and the fork got all the improvements while the official app is in the exact same state of when it was launched years ago?

It was because all the proposals got rejected?

Because if he rejected all the improvements I don’t really understand why he’s saying “nobody wants to help development”

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- imsodin@infosec.pub ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  It’s all in the open, you can go dig around for reasons. As usual there wasn’t a single simple one. Neither was it some kind of complete fallout, we e.g. collaborated on translations and I have been in contact around various things with the one that forked.
  
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NeuronautML@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Fyi the syncthing-fork guy who’s still updating has a donating button on F-droid via Liberapay. It’s up to you if your financial situation allows you to donate, but the more of us help the remaining developers for their time, in particular those of us that rely so much in their work, the better we’ll be off.

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- electronVolt@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  PayPal though. Is there another way to donate to this superhero?
  
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  - NeuronautML@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I tried looking around but this humble soul doesn’t have much in the way of receiving donations. I suggest contacting him via github.com/Catfriend1 to ask for an alternative and if he gets back to you, share it here for other people who dislike paypal.
    
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gedaliyah@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Oh No! This is terrible news. This IMHO is one of the most irreplaceable projects out there. I don’t know of another cross-platform local file syncing app that comes anywhere close to this. I hope that it can continue even if it’s not through the Play Store.

Google seems to be torpedoing open source developments with a number of decisions lately. Maybe they see F-Droid as a threat now that EU is making them open competition? Maybe they just don’t care.

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cmgvd3lw@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Sad day indeed, bitwarden going shady and this.

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- calmluck9349@infosec.pub ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  What did bitwarden do??
  
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  - Atemu@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    lemmy.ndlug.org/post/1268531
    
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jagged_circle@feddit.nl ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Who gives a shit about play? How much do I have to pay you to update it in fdroid still?

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flop_leash_973@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Phones are becoming less and less interesting by the day.

Once they get to the point were all of the options that don’t require incredibly inconvenient sacrifices in functionality to maintain the interesting stuff like a video game console then that will kill interest in the market for me.

If I can’t do anything besides basic smart phone crap I might as well just buy whatever has a good camera once every half decade or so and be done with it. So whatever top end thing Samsung or Apple are putting out.

I’m not sure Google has fully thought through what it means to just be a worse version of what Apple puts out, but with more ads.

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- chiliedogg@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Smartphone design is mostly a solved problem. Take today’s screens and processors and throw in a few features from the past (removable storage, IR blaster, and headphone jack) and you have a 10-year phone.
  
  I used to get a new phone every year because phone got way better each generation.
  
  My phone is top-tier from 2021 (Z Fold 3), and I have had zero temptation from the newer versions. All they really have is faster processing, but since all apps are designed to run well on budget phones from 5 years ago, there’s no reason to upgrade.
  
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  - sxan@midwest.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    
    since all apps are designed to run well on budget phones from 5 years ago, there’s no reason to upgrade.
    
    5 years, maybe, but any more is stretching it. And not getting system upgrades anymore is problematic. Unless you own a particular model of phone, de-Googled Android can be hard to come by.
    
    For example, I have a 7-year old Pixel C. By the time Google stopped using system updates for it, I wasn’t wanting them as every release made the device slower and more unstable. After some effort, I was finally able to install a version of Lineage, which itself has problems including no updates in years. There’s a lot of software that is incompatible with my device, both from Aurora and FDroid.
    
    Android isn’t Linux; Google doesn’t care about maintaining backward compatability on old devices, much less performance, and there’s no army of engineers making sure it is because there’s a served running in walled-up closet no one can find.
    
    Google deprecates features and ABIs in Android, apps update and suddenly aren’t backwards compatible.
    
    5 years, maybe. The entire industry is addicted to users upgrading their phones, and everyone gets a piece of that pie. There’s no actors, except perhaps app developers, who have any interest in keeping old phones running. Telecoms upgrade their wireless network - the internet connection in my 8 y/o car, and half its navigation features, died the day AT&T decided to stop supporting 3G; Phone makers make no money if you don’t buy new phones; and maintaining backwards compatibility costs Google money which they’d rather siphon off to shareholders.
    
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paperd@lemmy.zip ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
There is an android native GUI for syncthing in fdroid that looks like its still maintained: github.com/Catfriend1/syncthing-android?tab=readm…

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GBU_28@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Literally set up a home Nas and syncthing last week.

What’s a good alternative for Android?

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solidgrue@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

For the F-droid enabled users, it seems there’s a Syncthing app in the Termux repos:

~ $ apt show syncthing
Package: syncthing
Version: 1.28.0
Maintainer: @termux
Installed-Size: 26.4 MB
Homepage: https://syncthing.net/
Download-Size: 7857 kB
APT-Sources: https://packages.termux.dev/apt/termux-main stable/main aarch64 Packages
Description: Decentralized file synchronization

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MrMcGasion@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I’ve been using Syncthing-Fork (on F-Droid) for the extra features it has. I wonder if that developer will be able to continue.

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jjlinux@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
This is going ro leave a shit-ton of people dead in the water.

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RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Any news about the fork of it? github.com/Catfriend1/syncthing-android-fdroid

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BearOfaTime@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I can only hope the company makes the iOS client (Möbius) decides they need syncthing to continue and decide to get behind it.

As I recall, they use Syncthing as a solution in their business, this would be a big-break for them.

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P4ulin_Kbana@lemmy.eco.br ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
What is this app for?

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xePBMg9@lemmynsfw.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Not sure I understand the reasoning for discontinuing. Google standing in the way? Not enough f-droid users benefiting from it? It didn’t see development cause it was already feature complete?

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TrippyHippyDan@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
oof. All I can do is thank you for the hard work that anybody’s put into this, and I’m sad to see it go because I’ve been using this with my keypass for probably about a year now.

Really hoping the Graphene OS lawsuit allows for some Options to open up again!

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AMillionMonkeys@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Well that’s a shame. I’m sort of half-assedly using syncthing to backup my photos from my phone to my server, but mostly I rely on immich. I never really got the hang of using syncthing with my phone.

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rpla@masto.es ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
@chaospatterns
Lo he estado usando en dos dispositivos para sincronizar bóvedas de Obsidian y su funcionamiento era un poco errático.
Después de los últimos problemas, lo tenía inactivo a la espera de una nueva configuración, un proceso que me parece tedioso e innecesariamente complejo. Cuando menos poco amigable.
Mientras tanto estaba usando el cable USB para volcar los archivos en el PC.
Ahora quizás tendré que buscar otro sincronizador para Android?
Android no me gusta. ¿Por qué fracasó el Linux para Tablets?
Quiero mi Tablet y mi teléfono con Linux.
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Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I’ve always just used Folder Sync + an ssh server, if people are looking for alternatives.

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justme@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Oh boy, just wanted to get into it. Damn sad, not of course understandable, the developers are only humans as well

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