3 ms·

I wish there was an easier way to send things to/from a phone. I use a 1-person slack channel for this because I can't find a simpler way. Google Drive and Dro

by dheera 3y ago

I wish there was an easier way to send things to/from a phone. I use a 1-person slack channel for this because I can't find a simpler way. Google Drive and Dropbox are both awful mobile clients.

mixmastamyk 3y ago
Was just dissing KDE connect but it works well in most combinations. Also you can connect a USB cable.
- dheera 3y ago
  USB cables involve about 5 steps and half my cables don't work because they were not built sturdy enough and got chomped by my office chair, standing desk, or something else. There should be a way to just right click and "send to phone"
  - xyzzy_plugh 3y ago
    Highly recommend KDE Connect, even if it seems like it's not relevant for you (the KDE bit) it's quite solid.
  - mixmastamyk 3y ago
    I have a hub and an extra cable hidden under my keyboard. When I need to plug in a device for power or thunderbolt transfer it is a two step... 1) grab cable 2) plug in. Konnect is fine for other cases.
    - dheera 3y ago
      and then disable "do not disturb mode", swipe down notifications about 5 times until USB device pops up, open it, approve the hex shit, peck at the tiny button to change its mode from MDI/UTP/PCP/whatever other hell options are out there to a file transfer mode, then hope and pray it shows up on computer, then click, wait a long time, then navigate the phone's messed up file system before you can drop something in there.
      - mixmastamyk 3y ago
        I don’t do any of that. Once I had to say “trust computer.” It mounts automatically after that.
minhmeoke 3y ago
The problem with email attachments is that they only support files up to around 25MB, while slack has a 1GB attachment limit, and if you have a slow uplink to the cloud, it could take a while to upload the file. A friend wrote a faster and more sophisticated version of `python -m http.server 8000` in rust which also supports uploads, you can read about here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37628347 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37628347 File transfers are performed over the local network, and therefore should be very fast. If you don't have a network connection, you can just enable a Wifi hotspot on your mobile device and transfer the files over that. There is no need to install any software on the mobile device, you can just use a web browser to browse to a directory that you share over the network.
psanford 3y ago
I made the android† port of Wormhole William[1] specifically to help transfer some encryption keys that I didn't want to ever live unencrypted on a server in the cloud. [1]: https://github.com/psanford/wormhole-william-mobile https://github.com/psanford/wormhole-william-mobile †: There's also a working iOS port but its not released on the App Store because of how hostile Apple makes that process to open source developers.
networked 3y ago
The main thing I use for ad hoc file transfers is Total Commander for Android (https://www.ghisler.com/android.htm https://www.ghisler.com/android.htm). It can copy files to and from a WebDAV inbox on the local network as well as my home directory (although the SFTP plugin I use for that is fiddly to set up and a bit buggy). For copying the same things on a regular basis, I run rsync scripts in Termux (https://termux.dev/en/ https://termux.dev/en/). They push photos from my phone to my computer and pull essential backup from my computer to my phone. They also synchronize themselves and Termux configuration. For exchanging files without a direct network connection, I have croc and the Rust version of Magic Wormhole (https://github.com/magic-wormhole/magic-wormhole.rs https://github.com/magic-wormhole/magic-wormhole.rs) installed in Termux. It may seem arcane and archaic, but I have found this setup better (more predictable and more reliable) than anything "mobile-native". I appreciate that Termux behaves mostly like other Linux machines. I had a pretty positive experience with Syncthing for Android on my previous phone. It was before I started using Termux. I had a directory called "clipboard" that synchronized between my desktop, laptop, and phone. Sometimes it took a while to notice new files. I would use it if I didn't use Termux or if I needed to keep multiple mobile devices in sync. If I had to often send files to a mix of Android and iOS devices on the same local network, I would try LocalSend (https://localsend.org/ https://localsend.org/).

by dheera 3y ago

I wish there was an easier way to send things to/from a phone. I use a 1-person slack channel for this because I can't find a simpler way. Google Drive and Dropbox are both awful mobile clients.

mixmastamyk 3y ago

Was just dissing KDE connect but it works well in most combinations. Also you can connect a USB cable.

dheera 3y ago
USB cables involve about 5 steps and half my cables don't work because they were not built sturdy enough and got chomped by my office chair, standing desk, or something else. There should be a way to just right click and "send to phone"
- xyzzy_plugh 3y ago
  Highly recommend KDE Connect, even if it seems like it's not relevant for you (the KDE bit) it's quite solid.
- mixmastamyk 3y ago
  I have a hub and an extra cable hidden under my keyboard. When I need to plug in a device for power or thunderbolt transfer it is a two step... 1) grab cable 2) plug in. Konnect is fine for other cases.
  - dheera 3y ago
    and then disable "do not disturb mode", swipe down notifications about 5 times until USB device pops up, open it, approve the hex shit, peck at the tiny button to change its mode from MDI/UTP/PCP/whatever other hell options are out there to a file transfer mode, then hope and pray it shows up on computer, then click, wait a long time, then navigate the phone's messed up file system before you can drop something in there.
    - mixmastamyk 3y ago
      I don’t do any of that. Once I had to say “trust computer.” It mounts automatically after that.

minhmeoke 3y ago

The problem with email attachments is that they only support files up to around 25MB, while slack has a 1GB attachment limit, and if you have a slow uplink to the cloud, it could take a while to upload the file. A friend wrote a faster and more sophisticated version of `python -m http.server 8000` in rust which also supports uploads, you can read about here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37628347 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37628347 File transfers are performed over the local network, and therefore should be very fast. If you don't have a network connection, you can just enable a Wifi hotspot on your mobile device and transfer the files over that. There is no need to install any software on the mobile device, you can just use a web browser to browse to a directory that you share over the network.

psanford 3y ago

I made the android† port of Wormhole William[1] specifically to help transfer some encryption keys that I didn't want to ever live unencrypted on a server in the cloud. [1]: https://github.com/psanford/wormhole-william-mobile https://github.com/psanford/wormhole-william-mobile †: There's also a working iOS port but its not released on the App Store because of how hostile Apple makes that process to open source developers.

networked 3y ago

The main thing I use for ad hoc file transfers is Total Commander for Android (https://www.ghisler.com/android.htm https://www.ghisler.com/android.htm). It can copy files to and from a WebDAV inbox on the local network as well as my home directory (although the SFTP plugin I use for that is fiddly to set up and a bit buggy). For copying the same things on a regular basis, I run rsync scripts in Termux (https://termux.dev/en/ https://termux.dev/en/). They push photos from my phone to my computer and pull essential backup from my computer to my phone. They also synchronize themselves and Termux configuration. For exchanging files without a direct network connection, I have croc and the Rust version of Magic Wormhole (https://github.com/magic-wormhole/magic-wormhole.rs https://github.com/magic-wormhole/magic-wormhole.rs) installed in Termux. It may seem arcane and archaic, but I have found this setup better (more predictable and more reliable) than anything "mobile-native". I appreciate that Termux behaves mostly like other Linux machines. I had a pretty positive experience with Syncthing for Android on my previous phone. It was before I started using Termux. I had a directory called "clipboard" that synchronized between my desktop, laptop, and phone. Sometimes it took a while to notice new files. I would use it if I didn't use Termux or if I needed to keep multiple mobile devices in sync. If I had to often send files to a mix of Android and iOS devices on the same local network, I would try LocalSend (https://localsend.org/ https://localsend.org/).