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] 48 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day 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] 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 hours 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 4 hours ago

Great idea.

[–] [email protected] 82 points 1 day 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] 41 points 1 day 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 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day 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 1 day 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] 3 points 1 day ago

Yup, that was easy.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 day 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] 5 points 1 day ago

Thank you for this :)

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[–] [email protected] 171 points 2 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] 31 points 1 day 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 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day 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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

In that case, could the syncthing-fork app be renamed to syncthing, now that it'll probably be the main Android app for Syncthing?

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[–] [email protected] 66 points 1 day ago

Thank you for all of your hard work!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago

Thank you for your work!!!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

funnily that is/was one of the Lemmy creators: Nutomic :)

Plot twist

[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 day ago

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

[–] [email protected] 127 points 1 day 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] 49 points 1 day ago (1 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.

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

Peachy. Sounds like there's nothing to worry about then (from a user POV).

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago

Good idea to send donations to the syncthing-fork devs to keep it alive though.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

Yah I mean the notice for the storage access has only been five years. How can they do that.

[–] [email protected] 187 points 2 days ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 47 points 2 days ago (10 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 :)

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 day ago (18 children)

Sad day indeed, bitwarden going shady and this.

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[–] [email protected] 138 points 2 days ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (22 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.

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[–] [email protected] 59 points 2 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] 36 points 1 day ago (6 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] 14 points 1 day 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] 3 points 1 day ago

Yea, I want a small linux PC with touch screen, and mobile Internet 🙃 sadly, there seem none to be around with enough battery and enough computing power and a good USB C with working PD and OTG (ideally a alt mode video protocol like hdmi/DP/thunderbolt as well)

One may dream 😂😅

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[–] [email protected] 87 points 2 days ago (23 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] 7 points 1 day ago

Syncthing-fork on fdroid.

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[–] [email protected] 82 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 58 points 2 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"

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