Hello all Syncthing’ers!
Possible to make syncing of files through bluetooth?
No, sorry.
yeah, i have the very same question, SyncThing works great for what it does, still:
Bluetooth is offline and ALWAYS available - this means sync is possible all times and without limitations of any sort
the requisite to be online is a true limitation and “unnecessary” if files stored offline are mirrored between offline devices. It does not enlighten me why Bluetooth is not an option.
Bluetooth is not very quick, but who cares - sync happens in the background, so it does not matter how long it takes
Why is Bluetooth not an option?
Because literally nobody had cared to investigate how that would work or tried to implement it.
Hi,
Wireless Hotspot offers more bandwidth and you don’t need an internet connection for it to work together with Syncthing on the phone. (I didn’t use that myself but I think there’s also a “tether internet via Bluetooth” function in some phones. Less bandwidth, but maybe this can be also abused to run with Syncthing if its TCP/IP based.)
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Nice idea 
The reason why i added my 2 cents is, i live in a rural area - and yet in 2021, we experience blackouts, bad or no network at all. Even by good weather (hilarious i know - you get the usual redirected formal excuses if asking / complain to your local power provider - phone provider introduced bots so you cant even bother them if you want 
).
Unluckily i have to live with these technical limitations, so of course this makes me look forward for less dependent solutions in a broader sense. No blame to anyone.
Would be awesome if SyncThing would add Bluetooth to its repertoire
Still I don’t see why that would stop you from syncing over a local WiFi hotspot? It’s supported by most phones nowadays, and is much faster than any Bluetooth connection.
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What’s the advantage over a normal wireless router that you connect all your devices to (both using wire and wirelessly)? You can surely use a router offline without any Internet access, can’t you?
I’d also argue that Bluetooth isn’t really always available, simply because the vast majority of desktop computers don’t have any Bluetooth capabilities, so you’ll still need to find an alternative way to connect those. On the other hand, basic networking is built in into everything nowadays.
In my case this would be useful for two reasons:
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Our corporate policy prevents connecting to WiFi networks when a network cable is connected, and because we work with docking stations, unplugging the network cable in order to switch to a WiFi hotspot from my phone from the dock is tedious. (Syncthing can’t reach the internet at work, so that’s unfortunately not an option either).
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Bluetooth is nice because devices can connect to each other without the user having to interact with either device at all. That means if they’re paired and in-range then sync can happen without me having to do anything.
Since my phone acts as my source of truth, and I carry it around everywhere I go, it would be nice if I didn’t have to think about syncing my data on my work laptop. I want it to happen in the backgruond the way it does on my home PC. Bluetooth would be that solution for me.
Bluetooth doesn’t support TCP/IP, so there has to be a transceiver of sorts. Building that functionality into Syncthing (or any other mobile app) is no small feat.
If your phone’s hotspot feature supports Bluetooth tethering, then that’s a much simpler solution that doesn’t require major changes to Syncthing.
After Bluetooth tethering your laptop to your phone, Syncthing on your laptop can use the virtual NIC (created by the Bluetooth link) to reach across via Bluetooth to the virtual router on your phone. Then on the other side of that virtual router is Syncthing on your phone.
Since global discovery isn’t available to your phone, it’ll have to be local discovery. If Syncthing on your phone and your laptop cannot find each other, you’ll have to manually configure the “Addresses” field in Syncthing (either on your phone or your laptop – for various reasons, laptop side is the better choice).
Depending on how your phone handles tethering, it might not be completely hands off. For security reasons tethering often requires confirmation.
Thanks for the summary. That’s the conclusion I came to as well. Unfortunately I still haven’t found a completely hands-free solution as you say. But that would be nice. Unfortunately, for me the best solution is our company’s NextCloud, which I can periodically synchronise with my own.