How are you guys setting up Syncthing on Android? I guess my major confusion is the fact that a program like Dropbox just sorta works out of the box without configuring any specific run conditions and it does not trigger a persistent notification in Android telling you that it’s running. Install dropbox, log in, set it up on your desktop and it immediately uploads your camera photos from Android to your desktop as you take them. There is no persistent notification and dropbox does not kill your battery (I use the wifi only setting in Dropbox).
With Syncthing I either have to run it manually to get my camera to sync and then manually shut down the app when it’s done uploading to avoid high battery use. When the option to “always run in the background” is chosen, I add the filter to only run on Wifi, but Syncthing still runs even if I’m on mobile data (the persistent notification is still there, but shows that Syncthing is disabled). This is the only way I can make Syncthing achieve a “set and forget” run option, but it really does a number on my battery and the persistent notification drives me crazy.
What is Dropbox doing differently that eliminates the persistent notification and limits the battery usage? When Syncthing runs in the background, the battery use is much higher than with Dropbox. And shouldn’t Syncthing be fully disabled if “only run on wifi” is enabled? I can live with the notification when connected to wifi to let me know it’s running and active, but when on mobile data it should be gone.
So the same operation as Dropbox is out, now what settings are you using to automate uploading and maintain good battery life? Are you just manually starting and stopping?
Also, on the desktop side. The folder that is shared with your phones camera, what should the rescan interval be? On the phone it’s a send only folder, which is what you would want. On the desktop should the rescan be disabled completely because nothing is being sent to the phone?
With fs notifications enabled, it shouldn’t be take too much battery life when running always, or in wifi.
There is a ticket about recent version being cpu intensive on some exotic OSes however, so perhaps thats your experience.
Furthermore, setting syncthing up is expensive as it has to hash and scan the content for the first time so perhaps that is what you’ve noticed. Once it’s in sync it should be ok.
And what about on the desktop side. The folder that is shared with your phones camera, what should the rescan interval be? On the phone it’s a send only folder, which is what you would want. On the desktop should the rescan be disabled completely because nothing is being sent to the phone? Does the rescan interval have an effect on client side from a send only folder?
Hi Annoyingduck,
I went through the same issues you did. To work around some of the issues you are experiencing I did the following:
Disable ‘Restart on wakeup’ (Options via WebGUI)
I also had experience / annoyances of battery life, but trying to get away from google drive/dropbox etc I want to stick with Syncthing. So I already have ‘Tasker’ for Android (paid version). And I created two profiles, when connected to wifi + screen off + every 3 hours, launch Syncthing > wait 10 minutes > kill syncthing. Plus another profile that launches at 3am and leaves it running etc. You need to configure Syncthing to run on mobile data etc (ie not only on wifi) but tasker takes care of the conditionals.
What this means is your sync wont be instant, but the data will be transferred on schedules.
Hopefully that helps.
I believe the reason for the Syncthing notification showing is, so that Android battery optimization does not kill the Synchting process running in the background. Essentially background processes are not allowed in Android. Why this does not seem to apply to the dropbox app is a good question. Why is this?!
One reason why Syncthing might not start/stop on Wifi events (Wifi on/off) is that the Syncthing app can only discover Wifi connectivity through Android location services. So if you have location services switched off most of the time (like I do), then the Syncthing run condition is never triggered.
Personally I think the run conditions within the Syncthing app are an annoyance rather than a solution - I use the “Run on mobile data” setting to essentially switch Syncthing on and off.
What I would like to see is a more granular control of run conditions with per folder settings, ie different settings for different shares (video/image folder only on specific wifi, TXT/Notes folder constant sync on mobile network data, large file libraries stored on a server not synced at all but as file browser with download-on-demand as in Synchting-lite app. Any chances of getting this in the near or not so distant future???