Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to copy a file between devices? (2022)

grdw.nl

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 354 posts

Re: How to copy a file between devices? (2022)

#91

Post by bestham »

greatgib wrote: post #81

The best solution I have found to easily exchange files between devices so far is to use Telegram. It works perfectly for your own devices. You can have it on multiple devices at the same time (computers, phones,...), there is a special "saved messages" channel for files, it can easily accommodate small to reasonably big files (like GB files), and there is also a webclient that you can use in a few seconds if you are…

With the aforementioned Taildrop you do not have to trust Tailscale with your data.

Re: How to copy a file between devices? (2022)

#92

Post by undebuggable »

I realized that the only reliable way to copy files between Windows, MacOS, and Linux is FAT32 formatted USB drive, assuming you have USB-C/A adapter available. Cloud object storage if you don't want to split the file into 4GB pieces, take the extra step to setup the clients, and upload speeds are acceptable. Between iOS and Android there is no local solution without PC in the middle and at least one MacOS machine is required. Most seamless is FTP server, but no free and acceptable FTP app exists for either. Very disappointing for an era when "AI is replacing and firing everyone".

Re: How to copy a file between devices? (2022)

#93

Post by volemo »

putna wrote: post #71

* send to “saved messages” in telegram * use gmail drafts for text sharing, remove after copying, when airdrop not available * python server for local things

I think you're forgetting about the four rules the author seeks to satisfy:

1. I can’t use an account from an existing online service.

2. It needs to be useable for a non-technical person.

3. Its flow has to be consistent across platforms.

4. No junk in the middle.

Re: How to copy a file between devices? (2022)

#94

Post by GoblinSlayer »

jeroenhd wrote: post #47

Writing code is fun, but I can't find much of a downside with Bluetooth here. "You can accidentally turn it on" (fair, I guess?) "and it drains battery like crazy" (it shouldn't unless you have a very buggy device) don't seem like that bad compared to Yet Another File Sharing App. I remember way back in the Android 4 era, my phone and my tablet both supported some "standard" form of WiFi Direct. It worked intuitively…

No no, file sharing is privacy! Not allowed. Also both SMB implementations are "let's implement a protocol and add security later" nightmare.

Re: How to copy a file between devices? (2022)

#95

Post by lifestyleguru »

mkotowski wrote: post #77
DaSHacka wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only we had something like AirDrop that reliably worked cross-platform. Proximity-based sharing just makes significantly more sense than uploading files to some server miles away, then immediately redownloading them back when the computer was two feet away from you the whole time.

Maybe LocalSend? https://localsend.org/ Windows, Linux, Android, iOS and macOS. Seems quite cross-platform. Can confirm it works smoothly for Linux and Android at the very least.

Most people will happily install entire ad package from Meta and Google, but not some unknown "LocalSend app".

Re: How to copy a file between devices? (2022)

#96

Post by LVB »

geor9e wrote: post #41
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #5

Isn’t https://wormhole.app/ the solution here? Note I haven’t used it, it’s just often brought up here as a good solution for this class of problem. Is it surprising that the author mentions a ton of solutions but not this one? I would think a deep dive of file sending applications would include this, it’s old enough and well known enough in circles that its exclusion in a comparison of file sending approaches does f…

The downside of websites like that is that it travels over the internet, so you're throttled by every bottleneck along the way, which can be very painful if you're out and about and your hotspot is suffering 3G speeds. Meanwhile, Airdrop spawns an ad-hoc network giving you gigabit transfers in the middle of nowhere. Personally, if Airdrop isn't an option, I use TotalCommander to transfer over my hotspot network (no i…

Not so for WebRTC. We use Snapdrop all the time to transfer between devices, and it just gets the two nodes talking, but the data xfer is peer to peer on our network. Works great.

Re: How to copy a file between devices? (2022)

#97

Post by diffeomorphism »

I must be missing something, but right-click -> share already works just fine?

Share with kde connect, select your windows, linux, iOS, android whatever device, done. The only restriction is that both devices are connected to the same WiFi.

Why are you looking for cloud solutions for a local transfer?

Re: How to copy a file between devices? (2022)

#98

Post by Jolter »

XorNot wrote: post #78
DaSHacka wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only we had something like AirDrop that reliably worked cross-platform. Proximity-based sharing just makes significantly more sense than uploading files to some server miles away, then immediately redownloading them back when the computer was two feet away from you the whole time.

Pairdrop was posted on HN a little while back and I setup an instance on my home network. Doesn't work everywhere obviously but it does seem to effectively solve this problem within my household. https://github.com/schlagmichdoch/PairDrop

Does it require self-hosting a service?

Re: How to copy a file between devices? (2022)

#99

Post by lifestyleguru »

m-a-r-c-e-l wrote: post #63

Use WhatsApp: - create a group and add 1 person - remove that person - share whatever you like with yourself via WhatsApp web :)

There are many memes on reddit that people use offical Ronaldo/TaylorSwift/CocaCola/whatever WA accounts for this.
Post reply on HN