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] 52 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Fyi the syncthing-fork guy (catfriend1) 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 on their work, the better off we'll be. Let's give them a little motivation to keep working on this.

FYI2 syncthing-fork (as written and confirmed in this thread) has an import button for your folders from syncthing Android.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

PayPal though. Is there another way to donate to this superhero?

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

I tried looking around but this humble soul doesn't have much in the way of receiving donations. I suggest contacting him via https://github.com/Catfriend1 to ask for an alternative and if he gets back to you, share it here for other people who dislike paypal.

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

Great idea.

[–] [email protected] 85 points 3 days ago (5 children)

I just installed syncthing-fork from f-droid and it worked flawlessly as far as I can tell:

  1. "Export" in syncthing
  2. Uninstall syncthing
  3. Install syncthing-fork from f-droid
  4. Import in syncthing-fork
[–] [email protected] 42 points 2 days ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days 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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days 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.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Did it transfer over your folder setups so you don't need to set it up manually?

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[–] [email protected] 174 points 3 days ago (4 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] 66 points 3 days ago

Thank you for all of your hard work!

[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

As the statement says I wont - it will be fully discontinued. This statement applies to the official app only. It doesn't say anything about other apps or forks - any existing once can and hopefully will continue to exist. Also all the code is free.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 days ago

Thank you for your work!!!

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[–] [email protected] 129 points 3 days ago (2 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] 51 points 3 days ago (2 children)

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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[–] [email protected] 188 points 3 days ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 47 points 3 days ago (4 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] 29 points 3 days ago (4 children)

What is this alternative of which you speak?

[–] [email protected] 37 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 3 days ago

Who gives a shit about play? How much do I have to pay you to update it in fdroid still?

[–] [email protected] 139 points 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (12 children)

This is sad. Google Play should never hold this much weight in 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] 56 points 3 days ago (2 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.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 3 days ago (2 children)

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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[–] [email protected] 31 points 3 days ago (10 children)

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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[–] [email protected] 59 points 3 days 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] 87 points 3 days ago (11 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] 57 points 3 days ago (12 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] 38 points 3 days ago (18 children)

Sad day indeed, bitwarden going shady and this.

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[–] [email protected] 82 points 3 days ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 30 points 3 days ago

Agreed. Horrible news.

Hoping Syncthing-Fork will continue.

[–] [email protected] 58 points 3 days 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] 27 points 3 days 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] 65 points 3 days 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] 25 points 3 days ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 37 points 3 days ago (7 children)

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] 1 points 15 hours ago

I'm almost going full circle now, I'm buying a camera and a Music player to use as separate devices from my phone. Not only smartphones are getting expensive as hell, but the usability is actually getting worse IMHO.

And why is it so fucking awful to setup an automated pipeline to deploy smartphone apps (Android and iOS)?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 days ago (6 children)

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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[–] [email protected] 49 points 3 days 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] 25 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Literally set up a home Nas and syncthing last week.

What's a good alternative for Android?

[–] [email protected] 34 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 32 points 3 days ago (7 children)

Cool, now I have to find something else to sync my Obsidian vault to my phone. It just worked! Fuck. =____=

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