All of these wonderfully nerdy, techy and complicated answers
I just use Whatsapp on the phone, and Whatsapp Web in a browser tab.
Send files, text or images/screenshots
It would probably work as well work signal, but the folks I need to communicate with are all in Whatsapp so…
Locals end is a very streamlined and simple solution to transferring files between devices on the same LAN.
If you want to send files through the interwebs take a look at the ‘Magic Wormhole’ protocol. It’s very geeky and cool!
Localsend
File share on a NAS and “save to files” under the share menu on iOS. Also the venerable “send yourself an email” if the file is small enough
I used airdroid in the past. It can also mirror your PC onto your phone and vice versa.
I don’t know how it is these days, mustve been ten years ago that I used it.
Airdroid was aweaome. But they went and enshitified the thing.
Also KDE connect but I just learned you can send more than one file at a time through it.
- From Android to Linux Desktop: select files then the share button then send to [Your PC Name here] via KDE connect
- Both ways: select Remote Filesystem and just move or copy files around in the file browser.
Kde connect is also available in windows
Just use Telegram Saved Message feature and send files to yourself This pipeline works for me since it was released
Localsend is fantastic.
Cool! Thanks for sharing!
i tried it just now across iphone and android. absolutely excruciating experience.
Agreed, I’m not sure of why LocalSend is so well-received when I’ve literally been unable to get devices to even see each other, ever, even when they’ve been on the same network; I’ve tried across multiple networks (all devices on the same network each time). Literally ToffeeShare is way easier. PlainApp I’ve had some success with as well. Bluetooth works but not all devices take it, nor Quick Share.
I’ve had the same issue. It’s a little irritating
i got the localsend functions to work ok but it was still a wretched experience for everyone
Yes true, when the wifi network uses client isolation you’re fucked. As a workaround you can put the phone in hotspot mode and join that network from the laptop. I always need to do this at work because they are overdoing it on security.
idk what beaming is but I made https://dro.pm/ for sending files between any OS combination
Supports command line also in case you’d like to beam from there as well (of course wget to download, but if you curl|head the domain you also get instructions for uploading)
Sending files over bluetooth
let’s
Syncthing!
Maybe a little off the beaten track. I use samba shares on a server, and “Total Commander” on my phone / tablet with the smb extension, so I can easily copy stuff back and forth.
Total Commander can also directly send files between two Android devices (via WiFi with one of the devices acting as a hotspot). Helped me when I was away from the desktop and wanted to chuck some books onto the tablet.
It can also do sftp with Unix machines that do ssh. Easier and often more reliable than samba.
Both of these require addons to Total Commander, just like smb.
Microsoft has Phone Link for both iOS and Android
Google has Quick Share for Android.
Windows/Linux/Android devices can also send/receive files over bluetooth with any device that isn’t running iOS (because Apple explicitly disables that part of the bluetooth spec on their devices)
On Windows, it’s under bluetooth and device settings and on Android you can select share > bluetooth. Where it is on Linux varies
for Windows and Linux, pair the Linux machine from Windows, or Windows will pair it as an audio device and you won’t be able to share files.
I’ve always had mixed luck with Bluetooth file sharing on Windows. Sometimes it works perfectly, other times it just doesn’t seem to work at all. Even with the same exact devices.
The best app
I use GSConnect for Gnome: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1319/gsconnect/
My phone and computer can occasionally see each other through KDE Connect. Never when I actually have a use for it though.
Make sure you are on the right network. My phone kept switching wifi and it took me forever to troubleshoot it.
i have this issue between my media pc (mint) and my phone (GOS), but my phone and desktop (ultramarine kde) can see each other and desktop and media pc can see each other…
I have issues with that too. Some of it might have to do with VPNs, but even with everything off, my devices sometimes still can’t see each other. I’m guessing I made a mistake configuring the network or something. Instead, I usually copy files from my phone via SMB, then access the same share from an NFS mount on my PC
You might have some background power saving mode enabled for the KDE app on your phone.
Nope, checked that already. KDE Connect is “unrestricted”
I’ve needed to open certain ports in my firewall to get it to properly work.
I have both my phone and my computers in tailscale and connected them with direct IP.
So now my phone can connect to my computer all the time, wherever I am !
Pretty useless but fun
+1 for KDEconnect
Seems to work much better on Linux than it does on Windows, in my experience.
Well, it was built for KDE, so I’d hope so.
I already installed it, you don’t need to sell it to me so hard!
I wasn’t selling KDE Connect to you, I was selling Linux to the other people that might overhear, lol.
OP was joking :)
Best one, a bit finicky at times but amazing.
I was wondering what this app was, since I just started using Ubuntu. Interesting to know what it does, sounds useful.
kdeconnect worked very well for me to transfer between phone platforms. interface is pretty intuitive. ios app doesnt save settings and crashes when you try checking them but it works anyway. one of my oldest fantasies with the smartphones is being able to directly share music between phones with friends nearby and this app seems to make it begin to be possible.
I use a simple app called FTP WiFi Server, works well and doesn’t require to install anything on the PC
I usually just use email.
Lol yeah, all these overengineered solutions. How often do you really need to share something larger than 25MB between devices and also don’t have USB handy?
phone to phone, to share folders of media directly
