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

211–220 of 354 posts

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

#211

Post by aspyct »

baxtr wrote: post #207
aspyct wrote: post #136

I regularly have to send files to customers, from a few megabytes to a few gigs. It's incredibly hard. Mail? Goes to spam. WeTransfer? Mail clients break URL. Download from my website? Some stupid browser will display the zip data onscreen. Send the link through messenger? Messenger breaks the link. SaaS gallery? Some file managers can't open the zip file. I've been doing that for two years now. Still don't have a 10…

Have you tried Dropbox links? The best solution I have found. But I agree it’s a mess.

Yes, but then you have to send the link, and it's also a huge mess.

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

#212

Post by raphinou »

aspyct wrote: post #136

I regularly have to send files to customers, from a few megabytes to a few gigs. It's incredibly hard. Mail? Goes to spam. WeTransfer? Mail clients break URL. Download from my website? Some stupid browser will display the zip data onscreen. Send the link through messenger? Messenger breaks the link. SaaS gallery? Some file managers can't open the zip file. I've been doing that for two years now. Still don't have a 10…

I had explored the opportunity [1] to help send files securely based on the Firefox Send fork available at [2]. It proved very difficult to sell with actually no interest in such a product (and I probably sold it the wrong way). I still use it myself and never had links not usable by the recipient (shared by mail).

[1] https://www.sendutil.com/ [2] https://github.com/timvisee/send

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

#213

Post by aspyct »

julik wrote: post #182
aspyct wrote: post #136

I regularly have to send files to customers, from a few megabytes to a few gigs. It's incredibly hard. Mail? Goes to spam. WeTransfer? Mail clients break URL. Download from my website? Some stupid browser will display the zip data onscreen. Send the link through messenger? Messenger breaks the link. SaaS gallery? Some file managers can't open the zip file. I've been doing that for two years now. Still don't have a 10…

> WeTransfer? Mail clients break URL. You can "Get a link" for a transfer you have uploaded and it will be very short and near-unbreakable.

Just yesterday that link was broken by a (microsoft) mail client.

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

#214

Post by contrarian1234 »

Bluetooth technically does work - but I don't think I'm ever able to get anything about ~40Kbps. It has similar issues to Wifi in that the OS abstracts it to such a degree that it's nearly impossible to see what's going on and to debug issues

- Is it switching to some low power mode?

- Is it falling back to some old version of the protocol? Why is it slow?

- It shows it's transferring on my laptop, but on the phone is shows it's still connecting.. why?

- Oh look, it just randomly "failed" in the middle of the transfer.. okay, why? Where do I find more info and debug/fix it?

I've not been able to find a good way to work with it. Maybe I need to bring out Wireshark? Maybe Ubuntu is misconfigured somehow.. If the issue is with my Android phone then I'm probably totally screwed b/c there are only a couple of toggles in the Android menus

( and I have basically identical issues with KDEConnect and other methods )

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

#215

Post by justsomehnguy »

jjbinx007 wrote: post #142
aspyct wrote: post #136

I regularly have to send files to customers, from a few megabytes to a few gigs. It's incredibly hard. Mail? Goes to spam. WeTransfer? Mail clients break URL. Download from my website? Some stupid browser will display the zip data onscreen. Send the link through messenger? Messenger breaks the link. SaaS gallery? Some file managers can't open the zip file. I've been doing that for two years now. Still don't have a 10…

Nextcloud works well for this, and as the files are already on your server you don't have to upload anywhere, you just share the folder, put an expiry date on and send them the url

> you just share the folder

And this is how some company can accidentally see way more than it had should.

Never do this for anything remotely important, just add a separate 'Share' folder and allow sharing to external users only from it.

Don't forget, if the user can't see something on the server that doesn't mean there is nothing else there. Eg: ABE enabled SMB share.

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

#216

Post by bigstrat2003 »

aspyct wrote: post #208
jjbinx007 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nextcloud works well for this, and as the files are already on your server you don't have to upload anywhere, you just share the folder, put an expiry date on and send them the url

I know, but even sending a link is not that straightforward in my experience.

O.o how is that not straightforward? Sending a link is the easiest thing in the world.

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

#217

Post by cl3misch »

quenix wrote: post #27
superkuh wrote: post #8

Most people should run a static HTTP/1.1 webserver (after port forwarding 80) on their home PC so they can dump files into a directory to share them by sending the http://your.ip.address.here/directory/ link via email or whatever. When you use directories and files your OS itself is the natural interface and everything just works.

Protip: if you have python installed you can just run python3 -m http.server 8080 to launch a web server in the current directory on port 8080.

Sure, but you can't upload from a client device. You can only provide exisiting files on the host.

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

#218

Post by _Algernon_ »

aspyct wrote: post #136

I regularly have to send files to customers, from a few megabytes to a few gigs. It's incredibly hard. Mail? Goes to spam. WeTransfer? Mail clients break URL. Download from my website? Some stupid browser will display the zip data onscreen. Send the link through messenger? Messenger breaks the link. SaaS gallery? Some file managers can't open the zip file. I've been doing that for two years now. Still don't have a 10…

Tried putting it on to a USB, and sending it by snailmail?

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

#219

Post by rkangel »

aspyct wrote: post #136

I regularly have to send files to customers, from a few megabytes to a few gigs. It's incredibly hard. Mail? Goes to spam. WeTransfer? Mail clients break URL. Download from my website? Some stupid browser will display the zip data onscreen. Send the link through messenger? Messenger breaks the link. SaaS gallery? Some file managers can't open the zip file. I've been doing that for two years now. Still don't have a 10…

I don't have a good asynchronous solution, but if you can do it while on the phone/Teams with them, then Web Wormhole (https://webwormhole.io/) is absolutely fantastic. You both open a web page, you drag a file onto yours and it starts appearing in their download folder.

It's WebRTC based so peer-to-peer, E2E encrypted, with servers only used for serving the client, and for NAT punching.

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

#220

Post by tempaccount1234 »

With external clients I serve the file locally, password protected access and encrypted file and then call them and watch them download. Then I confirm that they got it and stop serving. This is safe than to trust it to a third party service and I can monitor access. Sharing local port via ngrok is easy enough and Python comes with a http server that can serve a folder.
Post reply on HN