I just had to email me a file I got sent to my phone and I feel unable to accept this as the better solution.
What you do guys use for inter-device communication?
Everyone else mentioned most of what I would suggest.
One is missing for your original problem. Localsend. Think airdrop but cross platform. Super useful if you have a mix of devices (iOS, android, windows, etc…)
PC to phone:
- USB cable
- KDE Connect
- Nextcloud
- Syncthing
PC to PC:
- USB drive
- SFTP
- SSH
- Nextcloud
- Syncthing
Phone to PC:
- USB cable
- KDE Connect
- Nextcloud
- Syncthing
I use bitwarden send, all my devices already have access to my password database and i can save and download files or text though it. You can also use the URL to let other devices access it if you want.
KDE connect, sftp, and dropping files on my NAS is pretty much all I do.
Work stuff uses work methods though, work devices are “on” my network but fully segregated, so its thumb drive and sneakernet or our internal storage instead.
For sending files between a phone and a PC, I use KDE Connect.
For sending files between PCs, I use SSH.
Both are really simple and lightweight tools that normally come preinstalled, and you can use them with no configuration.
Adding to this, there’s a gnome extension so you can use KDE connect without KDE DE.
You can use KDE Connect itself without KDE.
Mostly nextcloud if it’s between my own devices.
For getting a file to someone else I had good luck with sharry. https://github.com/eikek/sharry
For files I use syncthing (also for music/photos/notes/etc… syncing files is IMHO the way to go wherever applicable).
For sending links to my PC (eg. articles linked from podcasts’ notes) I used to rely on firefox sync, but I’m starting to distance myself from Mozilla so I am gonna experiment with wallabang.
For sending small notes to myself (stuff that I want to sort or act upon when I get to my PC), I’m using signal’s “note to self” but I’m investigating alternatives because signal doesn’t mark such messages as unread and so sometimes I forget I’ve sent some.
Yep. For folders where I want access quick access to everything in the folder, SyncThing is best.
Starting to dabble with KDE Connect for one-off file transfers where SyncThing is overkill
where SyncThing is overkill
I just have a dedicated shared folder between my phone and desktop and drop oneoff stuff there (it’s also easier to script this way)
Depends on the scenario, but I’ll use KDE Connect, NextCloud, VaultWarden send, or just go old scp.
- syncthing (file synchronization)
- kdeconnect (file transfers, clipboard sharing, presentation remote)
- deskflow (keyboard and mouse sharing)
- warpinator (one off file sharing)
- rsync / scp (one off file copies / backups)
I use Bluetooth. Or if a device doesn’t have it, I will drop it into my server with scp or filebrowser.
Thumb drive.
Honestly, syncthing, croc, vaultwarden send, Send (fork of firefox’s send before they discontinued it, still works), Privatebin, etc.
LocalSend on both devices is something I’ve used
I also like LocalSend. Not quite as automagical as airdrop but it’s cross platform
I always have SSH everywhere on everything and I could never understand why anyone ever would want to make it more complicated than that.
Most people probably don’t care but it can be a security risk, allowing malware to move “laterally” between all your devices. For my main devices I don’t give them SSH access to each other, but I do give them SSH access to my secondary devices (like a Pi-Hole)
[…] it can be a security risk, allowing malware to move “laterally” between all your devices.
Unless you do something incredibly stupid, such as allowing keyless login or sharing keys (or having unencrypted keys or keys without a passphrase, seriously), I find it hard to see how that would actually happen in practice.
Admittedly, I don’t do a lot of shuffling files around from this device to that, however, if I do, I mostly rely on sFTP or SSH.
KDE Connect
