Sometime i want to send small messages between devices, such as a url, a note, a id, a token, a piece of code, a picture Especially send between phone and laptop.
Some chatting app have self messages such as telegram saved messages, slack (you), Microsoft team…
However i don’t want a bloated chat app that would took few hundred mb on phone, or required to install an app on my pc (linux which make many app broken). I don’t want work chat app too, because self messages can be seen and scanned by employer (yes, a security add on chatbot on slack warm me because i send something like password to myself on slack)
Something like Opera Flow would fit perfectly, but i don’t want opera browser.
SSH over Tailscale to Termux (all three free) using private-key authentication — two levels of e2ee, and fairly easy to use.
For small bits of text, I use one of these, depending on the direction and the source device:
- Laptop → phone:
xclip -o | ssh phone termux-clipboard-set - Laptop ← phone:
ssh phone termux-clipboard-get | xclip - Phone → laptop:
termux-clipboard-get | ssh laptop DISPLAY=:0 xclip - Phone ← laptop:
ssh laptop DISPLAY=:0 xclip -o | termux-clipboard-set
For larger things, or files, I use
scp. For other devices that I haven’t setup beforehand, or can’t set up (e.g. can’t run arbitrary programs), I connect to my phone’s hotspot, and use Total Commander’s Wi-Fi transfer addon for files (both of which are also free). Small strings I just copy over by eye and hope it goes well.- Laptop → phone:
Try plain-app
Syncthing.
I just use my note taking app
Google keep sounds perfect
I’ve been working with this issue for along time. Trying to find something platform agnostic and works with vpns.
App wise, I suggest Localsend for files
Information wise, I suggest Saladroom although there are several alternatives as well like ToffeeShare and ShareDrop
I mostly use Signal though, as it’s the simplest at hand app which fairly reliably makes it accessible to my various devices… With the downside of storing it.
Depending on what your are doing kde connect and/or sync thing
+1 for KDE Connect.
Especially in OPs use case of transmitting small snippets such as urls, the automatic clipboard synchronization should be very useful.
Indeed, if you’re just using devices on the same network, it just shares your clipboard. So if you copy something on one device, paste is available on the other. It’s pretty sweet.
Depending on what I want to do, I used a combination of Unified Remote and LocalSend, both of which are available for Linux. With Unified Remote, I can control my PC on my home network. So if I want to copy over a URL, for example, I could open notepad and paste it remotely from my phone’s clipboard (or type it manually), or I could open a new tab on my PC’s browser and paste the URL so it’s open and ready for me the next time I’m at my PC. I can sit downstairs on the couch and check the status of a project upstairs, open and run new programs upstairs, etc.
My only two complaints are that I need to be at the PC to handle admin messages like “Are you sure you want to install this program?”, which I guess is a safety feature but it’s still annoying. And secondly, I really wish they had an easier way to toggle between left- and right-mouse-click, it gets annoying.
To send images, actual files or even folders, I use LocalSend. It does require that you click Accept on the device you’re sending to, but I can use Unified Remote to do that, and then save the files to wherever I want to (or accept the default).
This may be less streamlined than other options, but what I really like about it is that I can complete a task and then not have to think about it again. I don’t have to go back to my desktop and download or save anything, I’ve already done it, the job’s complete. The only exception is when I’ve put a new URL into my browser, but that’s generally because I wanted to look at it on my (much larger than my phone’s) desktop screen.
Anyway, it works nicely for me; I hope you find a solution that works for you!
Localsend has a config named ‘auto-accept’ or whatever it’s called, in advanced settings.
I use either KDE Connect (/gnome connect), or firefox
Idk why this is so low. Kdeconnect is all about sharing information between devices, url/file even notifications. It also has remote control and ping devices.
All the listed options are nice but if you are looking for something more portable and doesn’t require any installing, I recommend PairDrop.
Try this small web app I made exactly for this https://kapus.app
I love your privacy/security summary. Thank you for your honesty!
This looks like a handy tool.
Thx! I made it for myself one evening when I needed to copy some passwords to my toy android before I managed to have cross platform password manager.
I just send an email to myself. sounds like it’s something you wouldn’t be allowed to do but you can
Best thing I’ve used in forever.
Requires Dropbox.
Would be great if it could let you sync stuff yourself, like with Syncthing or Resilio.
I refuse to use Cloud storages.
Still this is one of the best solutions I’ve seen.
Yup. That’s my one hangup. Except you don’t even need to install Dropbox. It just uses the Dropbox API (correct me if I’m wrong please).
The developer is a single(?) person based out of Germany and is pretty chill. I didn’t know it had Ubuntu and all support till after using it for a long time. I literally would use it just for iOS to Mac and back.
Yea, just requires a Dropbox account. And unfortunately I can’t get it to authenticate.
I’ll try some more when I have time, it’s a brilliant solution.
Discord. I have a channel in one of my servers that’s just me.
It’s a huge failure of computing that this is the most convenient and obvious way to do this.
Or alternatively it’s a win of messaging, it’s so easy and convenient it can be easily used for the purposes not intended
Yep… but if you are on iOS and Mac, copy and paste works perfectly fine and seamless. But any other combination is not good.
*If you have paid for newer gen and all of your iOS and Mac devices are compatible…
FTFY, it’s a heavy caveat that makes 80% of their equipment dead unless you give it a second life with a different operating system. I’ve got perfectly decent devices that are bricks in their current original OS unless I get real technical with it. One I can double the ram capacity in it because for some reason apple throttled it’s size but the hardware is designed for more if you just tweak it.
I wish apple was better about it and the device file transfers was just a staple thing that had since conception. Air transfer is a pain in the ass from past experience and works when it wants to, cloud syncing also works when it wants to even when telling it to update it now. I have a partner who uses apple almost exclusively, it’s so close to being something decent but I can never tell what’s actually going on with a device and there always seems to be some kind of weird hiccup in any process (like 25% of the time, still noticeable from being seamless though).
(I have frustration from this, I apologize for my rant)
Localsend is a good one to try out. Works with all devices and is pretty fast. It does however require an app to run.
For something you can run off the web on PC you can try pairdrop. This doesn’t require an app to work on PC. Haven’t tried it without the app on mobile so not sure if it will work on there via web.
I prefer Localsend over pairdrop due to local send being completely server less and all local.
Local send works well for me between android and iDevices in most cases. I will say it struggles with VPN’ed connections, which is by design of the network and some VPN will block local connections.
I know sharedrop.io uses a similar web based model as pairdrop and runs into the same VPN issue, but I’m curious if the room function might overcome that in pairdrop.
It’s also worth mentioning that localsend has specific Linux support, so the app should run fine. I use it on my Linux laptop all the time!
Oh man I use local send every single day, it’s phenomenal I absolutely love it. Can’t stop raving about it
A similar alternative to Pairdrop with a chat UI: https://drop.lol/
