Unfortunately I don’t have good news on the state of the android app: I am retiring it. The last release on Github and F-Droid will happen
with the December 2024 Syncthing version.
Reason is a combination of Google making Play publishing something between hard
and impossible and no active maintenance. The app saw no significant development
for a long time and without Play releases I do no longer see enough benefit
and/or have enough motivation to keep up the ongoing maintenance an app requires
even without doing much, if any, changes.
Thanks a lot to everyone who ever contributed to this app!
Thank you once again for everything you’ve done to keep the app alive!
The Play Store issues are really on Google, as while on the one hand, they don’t allow legitimate apps that require the more advanced permissions to actually do their job, and on the other hand, they let apps that collect user data or are straight-up spyware stay in the store with basically no consequences.
Would it be an option to keep it running in F-Droid for a few more releases (+ communication/documentation for the switch) to find out how many people would switch over to F-Droid?
Not being able to do releases in the common release channels is just a further demotivating factor, not the only reason. Revival or continuation of the app requires someone to step up and put in long term effort in it. It’s been on life support for a long time.
It’s sad to see it go. Thanks for all the work you’ve put into it so far.
For now, I’ve found an alternative: using Syncthing in Termux. After exporting/copying the files and tweaking the configuration a bit, it works fine. The only downside is that I have to start/stop it manually if I don’t want to keep my phone awake all day.
There is https://github.com/Catfriend1/syncthing-android as a direct alternative. When it comes to Termux (and Syncthing running inside it), I believe if you keep battery optimisations enabled for the Termux app in the Android settings, then it will be forced to sleep when Android is in doze mode.
have you considered Termux plugin for Tasker? From what I recall, Tasker is not that bad as of battery optimization, though I haven’t checked it in depth.
thank you, it was a pleasure using it on Android. I kept my no-cloud PIM data (contacts via vcf), calendar (via ics) backed up (encrypted) and shared with other people (fed to radicale+DavX5). The same for KeePassDX. It allowed me to avoid use of cloud storage for such data. Thanks again! Hopefully you’ll find a reason to bring it back to life some time later!
I’m aware that accessing web srv process running in termux is in general working (I’m accessing radicale UI that way), my question was more about whenever there is any specific of cli syncthing that have impact on using web gui.
If I understood your answer correctly, there is no issue with it. Thank you!
Though it’s a pity, as I have hoped to get rid of using Termux (kinda powerful tool not really recommended for GrapheneOS users), but under such circumstances I will revise my decision especially as I couldn’t find non-termux replacement for radicale+DavX5 to get ics+vcf into Android PIM store.
I came across quite a bit of uncertainty and some speculation around the announcement. Not here on the forum, which is kinda expected as people here are more familiar with the project, but I still wanna say it here as it’s the official venue:
As calmh said above, this is just the discontinuation of the official syncthing android app, that was more or less dormant for a long time already. It doesn’t mean syncthing on android is gone, you can still use syncthing on android and anyone else can keep publishing such an app there. It looks like it’s going to become harder, as android goes more and more into an ios-like direction, but even there lately a new open source syncthing app was created. So there’s good reason to hope the same will be the case for android for a long time still - at least I personally very much hope so, as I am a user
While I have questions I will say I am sad to see this go this app has really made my life easier. My questions are what about the people who already have the app on thier phones does this mean we have to use something else? and if so what do we use?
I can confirm that Syncthing+Tasker+termux is a working alternative.
Intall Tasker from Play store
Install termux and termux:tasker from F-Droid
Give the following extra permissions:
Tasker: additional → run commands in termux environment
termux: Appear on top
In termux install syncthing:
termux-setup-storage
apt install syncthing
Create the following file: ~/.termux/tasker/start-syncthing-for-5minutes.sh
#!/usr/bin/bash
timeout -s KILL 5m syncthing
In Tasker:
From 00:00 every 1 h Till 23.59
Plugin→Termux:Tasker
start-syncthing-for-5minutes.sh
terminal session: X
I switched off the Start browser in the GUI since it will pop up you into the browser when it starts, but i keep an open tab for it.
You can have a new installation, but if you export the config from the android app then you can copy it into ~/.local/state/syncthing then you only have to edit the config.xml and delete the username/password to access the GUI and then set a new one if you want.
The last version of the official app will still likely work fine for a long time (with no further updates, of course). If you do want to be able to use newer versions of Syncthing, then you can switch to Syncthing Fork. You can even export your current configuration via the app settings, and then import it into the Fork. The two are compatible with each other as far as Syncthing goes.
