this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2024
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Announcement by the creator: https://forum.syncthing.net/t/discontinuing-syncthing-android/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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[–] [email protected] 38 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 31 minutes 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.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 hours ago

Thank you for all of your hard work!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour 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.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 hours ago

God this is sad.

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

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Literally set up a home Nas and syncthing last week.

What's a good alternative for Android?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Is it well supported with a long term roadmap? Or are there other software one should consider for a 12month range commitment

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

I used it on an Android DAP to sync my music collection from my NAS after giving up on Folder sync due to its issues with new file detection breaking after a daylight savings time change. Synching was definitely more reliable but it takes ages to do the scan.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

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"

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 hours 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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

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.

mobiussync.com

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

It says "unlimited file sync is a $5 in-app unlock" so I'm guessing they can make money. Main problem is the apple developer fees that will eat the profit of the first 25 sales each year

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago

Maybe I'm misremembering, but I thought they used Syncthing as part of a business not directly related to Möbius - as a vendor supplying data management solutions to other companies. I suspect Möbius came out of need for their clients.

I can picture the vendor website in my head, just wish I could remember who it was for sure.

I would eagerly pay for syncthing, it's that important to me. I keep hundreds of gigs moving around using it. It's on my annual donate list already, but clearly that's insufficient.

Maybe the Syncthing-Fork dev will keep it going.

iOS is already more restricted on app sandboxes, and Möbius can handle it in the paid version.

On Android, Resilio somehow has more file access than Syncthing, even without root (it can read/write to either SD card root, while Syncthing can only write to a subfolder of SD0, and can't write anywhere of an external SD). So there's something going on.

[–] [email protected] 121 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

Oh my goodness! Syncthing without Android leaves me screwed. My whole digital life revolves around it.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

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 :)

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

What is this alternative of which you speak?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 36 minutes ago* (last edited 35 minutes ago)

Syncthing-fork. Both show if you search for Syncthing in fdroid. Since imsodin seems to be OP Dev maintainer for Syncthing, i think he is referring to the fork.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Only one I can think of is Resilio, but it's hard on RAM and battery for large folders.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

And I don‘t know what‘s going on with them. There weren’t any updates for years, now there is a design overhaul, no new features and suddenly they want me to register. Duck

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 96 points 7 hours ago (5 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 hours ago

They said somewhere that the play store thing is not the reason, it's just one of the more recent issues.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 6 hours ago (3 children)

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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[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

I've always just used Folder Sync + an ssh server, if people are looking for alternatives.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

That takes a lot more effort.

With Syncthing, I don't have to setup a server, poke holes in my firewall/expose ports, etc.

Plus Foldersync is way harder on battery, I've experimented a lot.

And I've used Foldersync since at least 2010 - it's great, really has it's uses.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

Plus Foldersync is way harder on battery, I've experimented a lot.

This is very configuration dependant. With an aggressive schedule checking a large number of files, it certainly can use a lot of battery; but I've had it setup to sync my entire device to my server a couple times a day, while also monitoring/syncing images immediately on creation/change. It doesn't even register on androids battery usage monitor as it uses so little power.

Anyway; just listing an option for people to look at

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

It definitely gets better once it's all caught up.

But it's still much harder on battery than ST when folders have changes.

It's kind of not Foldersync's fault, it's really because of the protocols - it's all connection-based, and FS has to compare each file at sync time.

Syncthing keeps an index so it knows what files have changed. Very different tools with different use-cases and approaches.

I used FS for years until I found ST, and had to do a lot more tweaking to get sync to work the way I wanted with FS. FS doesn't have sync conditions like ST, so I had to use Macrodroid to trigger it when on WiFi, for example.

FS can be a solution, it's just a lot more work for anything beyond basics.

[–] [email protected] 67 points 7 hours ago (7 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 33 minutes 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.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 7 hours ago (11 children)

With today's BitWarden drama, I planned to use KeePass with SyncThing for like an hour before seeing this :(((

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[–] [email protected] 68 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

OH NO, I hope the fork will continue for a bit otherwise I'm so cooked 🥶🥶🥶

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 hours ago

Agreed. Horrible news.

Hoping Syncthing-Fork will continue.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 7 hours 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.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 7 hours ago (5 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 31 minutes 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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 hours 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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