Syncthing for iOS

I know the version of Möbius for iPhone and iPad. Is planned a official version from Syncthing for iOS?

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Unsurprisingly, it’s not the first time someone asks that question on the forum. I’m sure a search will surface answers from all the usual suspects.

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That’s literally our second most long-standing issue (and hopefully soon to be longest-standing issue): https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/issues/102
All the info you need is there and in countless threads asking about this in the meantime. And I mean the whole point of the recent discussion here about Möbius was the lack of a Syncthing client on iOS.

More generally I remain unconvinced of the usefulness of the Syncthing sync model on iOS. Of course, thunderous success of Möbius would prove me wrong. In the meantime, since that exists it seems like the problem is solved for the moment.

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I have been running it on my iPhone for a couple or three weeks now, and although it works, it is not as I had anticipated. My bad.

Syncthing only syncs when you connect for a brief period, as ios doesn’t permit a daemon running full time in the background. Another limitation of the ios operating system is it does not allow me to open a file directly, but I must import it into the app. This may be a limitation of the app along with the ios operating system.

I have my personal password manager file and a work database file, sync’ed with my computers, but I muse re-load the file each time I want to see a current version. Same way with the SQLite database flie with projects for work.

Mobius sync does sync the files in the sync folder(s) OK, although it syncs every now and then instead of continuous sync as on other clients, but that is acceptable on my part. The inherent problems, as I see it, are on the ios end, and I haven’t found a work around, but I know nothing about ios system. I could manually copy the files with basically the same result.

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These are precisely the limitations I mean. Getting Syncthing to run in an iOS app isn’t rocket science, but it’s just not very useful on its own.

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Well, I guess that one could argue that such an app could be used in the full extent on a jailbroken device…

I guess? But then the app exists, or you can probably just run the command line version. Or use Android. :slight_smile:

@Andy Assuming 1) an iOS device is always going to be accessing an always on Syncthing node and 2) non-open source solution is okay (seems to be a necessary part of using most iOS apps).

The best solution is to run https://secureshellfish.app/ to access an always on Syncthing node. This app is basically an SSH client that integrates with the iOS files app. Even Windows has native support for running an SSH server today.

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I’m surprised to read this. Yes syncthing is for power users.

But I would love to stop using dropbox completely as it’s my gateway between my computers and my iphones.

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@devmtl See my post above regarding accessing a Syncthing node with an iOS SSH client (https://secureshellfish.app/). Also, Tresorit has a 3 GB free plan and while not perfect, is preferable to Dropbox.

I think accessing a Synthing node via SSH from an iPhone is as good iOS integration as can get right now.

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So use Möbius. It is Syncthing for iOS.

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Two really useful responses here. Thanks so much guys! Amazing how things you write years ago can make you look as helpful now as you did then!

I completely agree. For example I store a Keepass database one OneDrive which gets regularly update on my laptop, then I need access to it when out and about. Also it’s just really useful to have access to my files from my phone?! Surely this is a very common requirement?!

Right now I’m still using OneDrive for the reason that I don’t really want to pay for a third party client…

If you value choice and freedom to decide about which software to use, maybe an Apple phone isn’t the best choice from the start. It’s not our fault they have a rather closed software ecosystem and some software is just not easily runnable there. Remember that whatever exists regarding Syncthing and other Open Source software, was written by someone and mostly in their free time, without a monetary return. People who invest such time tend to choose carefully where it is best spent and that just happened to not be iOS so far.

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To be honest, Android isn’t necessarily any better. Yes, you can run applications in the background, but the number of workaround/hacks required to do it and increasing with each Android version is getting ridiculous (and especially so on non-stock, manufacturer-provided Android which the vast majority of people use).

Unless you mean truly open source devices like the few Linux phones that exist, but those are kind of irrelevant yet (and not even available worldwide, especially not in Asia which is the largest market in the world).

Android is a lot better. After getting a lot worse in terms of FS access around android 11, it is now on a good track again by allowing full access to shared data. That it’s not allowing access to app internal data is minor in comparison. Compare that to iOS, where the app needs to copy any data to be synced into the app internal storage of syncthing. And periodically restart itself and syncthing, because it can’t run continously. The android deficencies really are cosmetic in comparison. And that’s coming from the guy who gets super annoyed at least once a year when google forces me to spend time to upgrade the target api level of the app, and all the accompanying shenanigans.

Also @hazymat kinda ignored the latest post (well “latest”, 2 years) in this thread:

With all the deficiencies that iOS imposes, plus closed-source.

Ah and it could be telling that Jakob is a mac user, and still doesn’t use syncthing on iOS (not for lack of trying it out as I remember).

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Google may not do it in AOSP, but Android manufacturers love to do the exact same thing (see https://dontkillmyapp.com), and those devices are what people use in the real world. A lot of manual tweaking is required to actually allow an app to run in the background seamlessly there. It still may eventually be killed by the OS despite all that.

Sure, but them put blame where blame belongs - not on android, but samsung and all the other vendors that do this crap.

Yeah, but in the end, for the end user it’s all the same. When someone comes to the forum to complain that “Syncthing stops working on their Android phone”, they don’t think that it’s Samsung or Xiaomi to blame, they blame Android as a whole (or the Syncthing app :sweat_smile:).

Which for me is understandable, since stock Android as provided by Google basically doesn’t even exist in the real world, especially when it comes to non-power users and non-enthusiasts.

Re the last couple of posts - I’m sure most users of SyncThing aren’t interested in Android vs. iOS debate. Fact is that the growth of SyncThing depends on getting as many users and platforms to adopt it as possible. (If indeed growth is seen as good here, which it may not be I suppose.)

I made a sideways glance at this in my post, i.e. said I’d rather not pay for a third party app. After writing that and posting above, I decided that was a silly thing to say given SyncThing is open source and, although iOS App Store allows for free software, it’s more suited to developers who give commitment to their apps over a long period hence needing to charge at least a small amount. So I purchase Möbius last night after having had it installed for a while with small amount of data. Generally quite pleased with it.

Since the initial posts on this thread, Apple have made background processes work very well and I woke up this morning to find about 60GB of files had synced fine despite using my phone in the evening after installing the app. Also had a nice notification saying how long Möbius sync had run in the background over the last 24 hours, so that’s useful.

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