Syncthing Android App Discontinued

They did, the upstading app developers like this one just forced people to give them full access to all data in the app (or the app wouldn't run) and ended up not implementing scoped storage - something HNers outright demanded several times and exposed as a good upside of iOS.

So stick had to come out. The full filesystem access is now reserved for apps that manage full filesystem (e.g. file explorers) and that's it. Scoped storage APIs were introduced in 2013, 11 years ago and Play started enforcing them in 2020, so the experiment with scary warnings was running for 7 years and developers refused to give up on that sweet full private file access.

Granted, SAF is quite a shitty API.

I mean, syncthing is exactly the kind of app I would expect to have full filesystem access.

Why? I want it to have access to the folders I want it to sync, not everything on my device.

Seems like a perfect fit for SAF.

In a perfect world, what Syncthing does would be handled at the OS level and all OSes would seamlessly interoperate. In the real world the OS vendors are hostile to interoperability so the only way to get that is with a third-party tool that has OS-level access.

It's my phone. It's my data. It's my choice to install the app. It's my choice to grant the permissions to all files. Because guess what, I'm using the app to sync all my files.

I really can't agree with Google in this particular case.

And yet you'll blame Android when some app steals a lot of data just like it always happens on this site.

There are Android APIs to let syncthing integrate as cloud provider itself and the author didn't use those either.

I couldn't agree more. Given how much frigging hoops I had to jump through to get my Obsidian over syncthing setup to sync with my company iPhone - I nearly gave up.

I grew up when computers didn't babysit me and tried to act like the good old GDR, knowing every thing better than their citicens.

Nowadays, I feel more and more hindered by computers, not enabled. Computers used to be a production device (I could create things with them).

Phones are not a computer - phones are a just "consume like we want you to" device.

The problem is, I want my phone to be a creation device. A device that allows me to create content, text, to do lists, shopping lists, ideas and store them. And(!) sync them using the tools I decide to use. And not force me to use tools I friggin hate, because they just don't get the job done.

No. Not in my world. Because I actually want to be able to backup my phone - not only demarcated parts of it.

I want to be able to get all data from my phone - regardless of what it is and what app put it there.

If I decide to only sync specific folders. So be it. But I want to be able to sync "/"

It's an open-source program, it shouldn't be held to the same standards as a closed-source program that just shuttles all of your data to someone else's computer.

The risk here isn't misuse of the data, it's that some exploit is found in the code, and the additional protection of limiting its filesystem access is marginal (but nice to have).

How did you get iPhone Syncthing + Obsidian working? I was under the impression that it was basically impossible to share Möbius Sync's directory with Obsidian.

That's why you can install through F-Droid right?

Have you considered that it's a plural "you" that you're choosing to pit yourself against, with different people each weighing different complaints?

Almost by definition, the people who argue strongly for free use of their hardware and software are almost never the same people who argue strongly for safety and security restrictions. You seem to be frustrated by a contradiction or inconsistency that doesn't exist.

It's true that Google can't win the hearts of both sides, but they surely know that -- you don't need to get so personally frustrated on their behalf. It's just a company with a product in a market, and the market is never going to be uniform.

There is a new app Synctrain which does this.

I gave up. My phone now is just a communication and utility device, and thus I don’t feel the urge to upgrade until it can’t do those tasks. I went back to computers (and Linux) to be able to just use them as a computer.

The java.io.File API isn't removed from Android, nor inaccessible. You can absolutely still use it. Google Play has chosen to not accept it on their store unless you justify it (to their non working bots). In this case, the dev chooses to just drop the entire app because maintaining it just for Fdroid feels pointless.

There's very few permissions on android that are system/privileged/preinstalled.

I want it to be able to browse to another app's private folder to sync the data of that app to my computer. If browsing to there it's not the job of syncthing then I need a file manager with those permissions.

For 3 years now I can't open my Downloads or Pictures folder without root, because their shitty API is unbelievely bad that it would take around 30 minutes to open a folder with that many files.

In reality, Syncthing is also pretty good at destroying battery life unless you go above and beyond to configure it in a way that then hampers Syncthing's ability to provide seamless file continuity between devices. I know that there will be disagreement here, but in my own opinion OS vendors are correct in being hostile to these apps under current circumstances. They could provide better ways to have third parties implement it and provide cross platform support for their platform solutions, but I've had Syncthing be the #1 cause of battery life drain on multiple devices and platforms before and it's honestly just not worth fighting with it. To get it under control relegates it to being not much better than rsync.

So Google drive doesn’t have full filesystem access anymore?

I think it's important to draw a distinction between OS providers and app store providers here. The fact that they're the same entity in most cases is or should be largely irrelevant.

OS vendors shouldn't make it impossible to create apps that have unlimited access to the filesystem or that suck battery in the background. There are reasons users might want to run apps that do either or both - a file indexer, for example. All the OS should do is ask the user if the app has permission to do those things.

An app store provider on the other hand might reasonably have many criteria for inclusion, such as F-Droid only allowing FOSS. This only becomes problematic when the app store in question is effectively a monopoly.

> Seems like a perfect fit for SAF.

Except SAF is slow as hell, working on multiple files means separate calls for every little thing like file size via java API. Means everything going to be VERY slow and drain battery a lot. I've seen test from 2019 where directory listing operation is 25-50 times slower in SAF

https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/130261278

Same. I wish there were an alternative (a practical pocket computer), but there really isn't. So I too gave up on fighting my phone, and have also completely stopped doing mobile development. I now treat my phone essentially as an untrusted, prepackaged walled garden with limited utility. :-/

You don't have root. Google does.

I'm not saying that's a good thing, but it's not exactly a secret when you bought it.

> I wish there were an alternative (a practical pocket computer), but there really isn't.

There really is: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5.

And it's my daily driver.

Got it working myself. I set up a share inside of Mobius Sync that reaches into the Obsidian folder. (note the entire thing, just one vault). I think there was a popup saying it was unsupported but I haven't had any problems yet.

That’s still not your product though. You only bought a licence.

Flash your favorite open firmware, enjoy and let regular users who cannot do that avoid permission extortion. The world has needs and issues, it is not spinning around your skillset.

I use Sailfish OS as my daily driver since 2013.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailfish_OS

Thanks for the info. I haven't looked at this in a while. I'll take another look!

Appreciate the feedback. For some reason I feel like I dismissed this as an option at one point, but that was long ago. I'll take another look!

I use syncthing to back up my entire Android phone.

At least the parts it can access, anyway: /storage/emulated/0