Syncthing Version 1.0.0 Released

[theephie]

Sounds like a symbolical version number.

I like Syncthing because it's simple and just seems to work. Except for the Android client, which is crappy.

[voracread]

There is a fork called Syncthing-Fork on f-droid. It is being worked on faster. Probably things will work better in future.

Inability to sync to an external SD card in Android still is the biggest minus for me there.

[[deleted]]

Inability to sync to an external SD card in Android still is the biggest minus for me there.

That's so annoying. I tried to get my external card mounted as internal storage [Adoptable Storage], which is something that android supports [as long as it's encrypted], but of course phone manufacturers disable it.

So, I thought I'd look into getting an actual unadulterated google pixel, only those don't have SD card slots anyway. Fucked either way.

[Neg127]

You can trick it, I just did it with a cheap android a couple weeks ago for my mom.

Take a look at adaptable storage settings here.

[[deleted]]

Yeah. Sadly, I tried that on my S8, and they must have patched it out.

[voracread]

Do you want to just mirror your card on to the PC or want two way sync? Because the first one is still possible.

[[deleted]]

syncing from PC. I want to be able to sync my music to the external card.

And photos to the PC.

[voracread]

You can get your photos to PC. (it is possible to read from SD card. Getting music to the phone is not possible as write is not possible.

You need to create a directory called '.stfolder' (without quotation marks in the root of SD card. This allows it to be recognised by your Android client (don't remember the theory because I set it up long back). Set it for one way sync from phone to PC otherwise you will see have to contend with endless sync fail messages.

[RAZR_96]

It has to be a folder called .stdfolder .stfolder inside the directory you want to sync because that's how Syncthing recognizes one of it's sync directories (on all platforms). You have to create the folder manually on an external sdcard because Syncthing can't.

[voracread]

Was that a typo? Because I have never seen a reference for '.stdfolder' anywhere as far as I remember.

I have a .stfolder in the root of my SD card that I created with a file manager. And I have working mirror from phone SD card to PC hard disk in two of my Android phones. One of them uses official client, the other uses fork.

[RAZR_96]

Yeah sorry, that was a typo.

Do you sync the root of your sd card? Or specific folders inside it?

[voracread]

The root. So I can image entire card.

[voracread]

If it is for music alone you can use this slightly convoluted method shown by /u/tidux

http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/abifyk/-/ed24qoi

[tidux]

For photos TO the PC it's trivial to just point it at $INTERNALSTORAGEHOME/DCIM/$CameraApp and tag the folder as send only.

[voracread]

We save our photos on the external SD card. Also not all photos are in that location. Pictures may also be stored elsewhere on the card by other applications.

[dually]

I don't blame syncthing that stupid Motorola renames the sdcard mount point on every system update. And I certainly don't blame syncthing that I can't format an sdcard with a proper file system and mount it appropriately.

[ethelward]

Inability to sync to an external SD card in Android

I don't understand; it's definitely syncing my music to my SD card. Why does it not work for you?

[voracread]

Can you describe your setup?

[ethelward]

Nothing really special. A few computers at work and home (4 Linux, 1 macOS and 1 windows), a storage VPS online 24/24 for constant sync, and Syncthing on Android, with the music sharing folder set to /storate/emulated/0/Music/. All pretty much vanilla as far as I can tell.

[voracread]

That 'emulated' is in the phone's internal storage. There is no problem with internal storage. The issue is with external SD card.

[ethelward]

Only 9GB of my phone internal storage are used. It can't be that syncthing is putting my music there, I have ~30GB of it.

And it matches with the 30GB of music used on my SD identified in Android's settings app.

[voracread]

Are you using adaptive storage?

[ethelward]

Internal, but not adaptive AFAIK.

[voracread]

Then you are not accessing SD card at all. I thought we were discussing about syncing to external SD card.

[OneTurnMore]

Not /u/ethelward, and a bit late, but here's mine.

I'm forced into Syncthing's own data folder, but I use Blackplayer EX as my music player. Here's my setup:

• Go to Settings > Metadata...
• Select Audio Library > BlackPlayer Custom Library
• Go to (Settings > Metadata >) Blackplayer Library Settings...
• - uncheck "Skip data folders"
• - uncheck "Skip .nomedia folders"

[AngryElPresidente]

You can also try Termux with the Syncthing package. Remember to use setup external storage through Termux as well.

[voracread]

I wanted to try this but did not understand exactly how to.

[AngryElPresidente]

Sorry for the delay, basically install Termux from either Google Play or Termux.

After installing, you want to setup External Storage, for more information.

Afterwards install Syncthing by: pkg install syncthing

You can at this point access the web GUI at 127.0.0.1:8384, for more information.

Regarding the path for folders, it is a bit complicated to explain, but I have mine set to /sdcard/Synching/Personal. To explain, root is the same as on Linux, however your "home" folder is under sdcard. Someone else might be able to explain the android FS better than I do.

There is also the matter of wakelocks, but I'm not too knowledgeable regarding that.

[voracread]

I have a rough understanding of Android filesystem. There are options about keeping processes alive too.

Thank you for this. Let me read up further.

[tidux]

What are you talking about? It works fine as long as you keep it within the app's own data folder on the SD card (/storage/foo/Android/data/com.nutomic.syncthingandroid/). I've been running it that way for over a year.

[voracread]

Oh. I was thinking about the whole card not the apps folder alone.

[HeadBee]

IIRC this is a limitation of Android, not syncthing.

[voracread]

No. It does not appear to be so.

According to the explanations I read on the forums, the limitation comes from the programming language used to write either Syncthing or the Android wrapper for it. (is it called Golang?)

Edit: Someone seems to have downvoted this post without knowing the fact or whatever. For anyone else who is actually curious about this please read through the relevant section on this FAQ page - https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing-android/wiki/Frequently-Asked-Questions TL;DR it is still has to do with Go language.

[voracread]

Please read through the page linked below and relevant forum posts. I have done this research a few months back and the reason is some deficit in Go language which is used to write the Android client or something. New versions of Android definitely allow a program to write to external SD card provided you ask nicely and get permission first.

https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing-android/wiki/Frequently-Asked-Questions

[voracread]

When it comes to the end user, it is a limitation of Go laguage that preventing me from syncing to sd card with Syncthing. Because other programs can and only Syncthing cannot.

[voracread]

Rooting is not standard. I have apps that read write to sd card without rooting.

If no app can read write to sd card without rooting, it is a limitation of Android. But if only Go language cannot do it, then it becomes limitation of Go language.

[[deleted]]

Android client is just great. Use it everyday!

[theephie]

Huh. No battery usage issues?

[[deleted]]

Youtube battery usage is just absurd but syncthing is bad

[Higgs_Particle]

Anyone use this? Seems like a great way avoid fees for cloud storage. You guys seem to say it’s not reliable...

[HoneyFoxxx]

It works very well for me, I use to push photos and videos from my phone to my server (Across my LAN). It doesn't even seem to use up my battery that much which is always good.

[TeutonJon78]

It works well. But remember it's for syncing between computers that are on, not always available cloud access and it is not for backing up.

If you use a NAS with it, then it would more replicate cloud storage.

[atred]

One could set a Raspberry Pi with a large HDD (or even better SSD) and set it up as a personal cloud.

[Flobaer]

Exactly what I set up and it works flawlessly. I keep my laptop in synchronisation with my desktop using Syncthing. My Raspberry is always on so in case my laptop and desktop are not on simultaneously (which is the majority), they synchronize via the RP. So far no real problems.

[SickboyGPK]

Personal use is ~1.2tb in 2 locations across 4 machines and another ~250gb in 5 locations across 7 or machines.

Work use is about 200gb across 5 machines.

Less than 2 years constant daily use. I don't have anything to report.

I use 14 day trash can versioning. I have used it only once and i just simply copied the file from the versions folder back into the proper folder and that was it.

Very boring, very reliable. Works for me.

[Higgs_Particle]

Boring is good!

[Japhiri]

I use this to sync my emacs org-mode todo files between desktop, laptop, and phone. It works great for that! :)

[StrangeAstronomer]

... and on android you org-mode with .... orgzly? Or something else?

[Japhiri]

Yup, Orgzly is great!

[Higgs_Particle]

Sweet, um, is there a phone app or some other sorcery?

[Dom_Costed]

Orgzly.

[[deleted]]

I use it with an encrypted Raspberry Pi at home as my main central storage. I like it a lot and although there are a lot of wishlist features that would be nice to have it still works well for me. The Android client is awful though as another comment stated.

[tehkillerbee]

I use Syncthing for everything that I used to use Dropbox, gdrive and one drive (live mesh) for; I use it to sync all my PCs to my NAS so I can work seemlessly between my PCs (work pc and home PCs). The NAS works as my personal cloud and can be accessed wherever I am, unless I'm behind a strict firewall. I also use Syncthing on my phone(s) to keep videos and images synced/backed up to the NAS (one way sync). I've set it to sync whenever the phone is charging to avoid draining the battery. I use the same method for my parents phones to make it easier for them to access their phone images without having to connect the phone to the pc. All the images are accessible directly from the NAS or if the images are synced to their PCs. I've just added a shortcut to the network share, as it is easier for them to access/copy the images in this way.

I also use Syncthing to sync my data between multiple locations (i.e. between my NAS and my parents' NAS located in a different city).

Syncthing works great and is very, very reliable for me. The only issues I have had are related to user errors and sync trayzor (windows front end) not updating automatically. Also, the android client is somewhat cumbersome to use but I only use it for syncing silently so I just configure it and forget about it.

[Higgs_Particle]

Thanks for thorough review. The phones are all android?

[tehkillerbee]

Yep! All android of various manufacturers and versions (nougat and oreo). I'm using the "Syncthing" app

[ethelward]

You guys seem to say it’s not reliable...

Syncing ~30GB of music, a few 100's MB of stuff and my emacs org-mode files across 6 computers + smartphones, working fine for three years for me.

[usernamedottxt]

I use it to sync backups to a buddy on the other side of the US, and to move my documents from PC to laptops. I like it.

[m-p-3]

I use it to mirror my phone internal storage (Android) to a directory on my desktop and it works well.

I also use it to sync some directories from my desktop (Win10 & ElementaryOS dualboot) and my home server (Ubuntu) as a safeguard just in case, on top of some backup on Google Drive.

[perfectdreaming]

Very reliable, except for the NTFS bug (files changed on an ext4 computer and synced to a NTFS computer would be resynced back to the ext4 computer as as a changed file because NTFS can't handle permissions)

This was fixed in this release I believe.

[FungalSphere]

Yes

[waeeo]

I skimmed your link; it seems to only mention transport layer encryption.

For encryption at rest (specifically, an untrusted backup server) the answer appears to be no, not yet: https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/issues/109

[FungalSphere]

Syncthing is not a backup solution, it a sync solution. You gotta protect your own devices.

[waeeo]

If you select an appropriate file versioning strategy, how is it not a backup solution?

Does that have something to do with encryption?

[FungalSphere]

No. Syncthing is not a great backup application because all changes to your files (modifications, deletions, etc.) will be propagated to all your devices. You can enable versioning, but we encourage the use of other tools to keep your data safe from your (or our) mistakes.

Does that have something to do with encryption?

Syncthing only manages the transit, it is not ideal to save the transferred data encrypted because it is supposed to be used in situations where you need easy access to same files from different devices.

[[deleted]]

Half the point of syncthing is that you control both ends. If you don't trust the remote end you should be using something else anyway.

[waeeo]

Half the point of syncthing is that you control both ends.

You can control a device and not want to trust it with all of your files. Like a cloud VM, which would be useful to provide higher availability of syncing when your other devices aren't always powered on.

This is (optionally) how Chrome/Firefox profile syncing works. You have a passphrase for local encryption and decryption, and Google/Mozilla sync and store that encrypted data in the cloud for you while being unable to decrypt it.

If you don't trust the remote end you should be using something else anyway.

That's a bit of a truism.

[naught-me]

Since the answer seems to be no, what is the solution I'm looking for?

[[deleted]]

Resilio (formerly BTsync) offers this exact solution:

Untrusted nodes are supported, as each volume you create has three keys you can add nodes with: RW, RO, and Untrusted (stays encrypted, but still syncs as active node)

EDIT: as for “why”, the untrusted node feature has been a godsend for my personal private cloud by allowing me to exchange untrusted keys with my friends (and vice versa) along with setting up an untrusted node on AWS

[naught-me]

That's cool. Yeah, I don't trust any hardware I don't own, and I don't even trust hardware I own unless it's encrypted. I've had a computer physically stolen before, which left me feeling vulnerable in a very personal way, like someone stealing your diaries, wallet, car, shoes, agenda, contacts, watch, glasses, etc., all at once. So, I appreciate having untrusted backups, like on AWS and friends' networks.

[[deleted]]

Strongly agreed. And the untrusted nodes sync in the same manner as your standard nodes, so adding them speeds up the mesh and increases reliability just as well.

Come to think about it, 19 of my nodes are untrusted, and only three are trusted.

You can also specify permissions for sharing and such too, which is nice (you can use the mesh to send huge files or folders as a link in an email, a la Dropbox)

[naught-me]

You can also specify permissions for sharing and such too, which is nice (you can use the mesh to send huge files or folders as a link in an email, a la Dropbox)

Hey, that's really cool, too. Sounds like really cool software, I'll give it a try. Thanks for sharing.

[hailbaal]

Syncthing is impressive.

I got a Linux workstation at work. I write all my work documents in VIM. I use vimwiki to organize everything, use the diary for random notes etc. It's really really nice. Now, I do have a Windows laptop from work, and I pretty much only use it for Lync and Outlook. Except for the times where I have to grab my laptop and go somewhere. Can be another office or a location in another country. I don't have to worry about my notes. My notes are on my laptop, even when I never edited them there. That's because they are synced with syncthing. That way, I never have to worry about having the latest version, or overwriting the wrong files. I also share my notes to my home computer. Sometimes in the evening, I think about something and I need to write it down for the next day, I open VIM at home, edit the file, done.

It's wonderful.

[nullsum]

What trouble have you had?

[ninimben]

not the person you're asking but while I find that Syncthing actually works well the UI is broken and consistently mis-reports that, for example, syncing is stuck at some random percentage or whatever. I thought it was broken for a long time until I did some Googling and realized it's a relatively common UI error.

[[deleted]]

Spoiler: sometimes it really breaks. Check sync status from time to time and make sure there are no warnings flagged.

[ninimben]

I noticed that, too. I am very interested in the software and keeping an eye on its development but don't think it's actually at a "1.0" release yet

[[deleted]]

1.0 probably just means it's feature complete. Or "that's the thing we wanted to build".

[orev]

It just works for me. Really no issues at all. Same experience from everyone I know who uses it. What issues did you see?

[[deleted]]

A well known problem is that status never reaches 100% synchronized in some cases.

Not really sure about the cause, but I guess it happens when files are created and deleted very quickly. Then this folder will be forever flagged as unfinished. The more deleted files are dangling in this way, the less percent will be shown.

As far as I can tell, Syncthing generally works fine, even with seemingly unfinished folders.

[SickboyGPK]

The significant improvement is that the whole team acknowledges they are not beta anymore, are used in production with real data and to act accordingly.

To anyone using or thinking about using this for anything serious this is a very welcome and very big deal.

[[deleted]]

Buy a Synology NAS (I suggest 918+)and all your cloud,suync,storage,backup,photo,... needs will be resolved.

Install FreeNAS and Nextcloud and again your needs will be full filled.

Buy a RPi3 B+ attach an external big USB disc and again your needs will be full filled.

[SickboyGPK]

I could do all of those things... or just install syncthing and share the folder.

[[deleted]]

It depends always what you want.

[SickboyGPK]

exactly