Syncthing on Synology no sc-syncthing user

Tralien · April 16, 2026, 6:36am

Hey guys,

I installed syncthing on Synology via docker, after starting I added a folder and it seems that syncthing has no permission to write to that folder. So I checked my friends at google and they told me that I have to grant permissions to the syncthing user for every folder on synology. so that´s the point. syncthing did not add that user to my synology

Now I dont know what else to do I tried linuxserver´s syncthing and syncthing´s syncthing package. Any Ideas how to add that user to my synology users?

acolomb · April 16, 2026, 8:38pm

Since you installed via Docker, the reference to the sc-syncthing user is misguided. That only applies when installing the SynoCommunity package for Syncthing.

Sorry I can’t help you much with the Docker stuff, but I suggest you start digging into mapping volumes for the container and get yourself familiar with Docker permission management inside and outside the container.

zendnez · April 16, 2026, 11:52pm

Hi. The answer from @acolomb should point you in the right direction.

Here’s a more detailed recommendation. Choose either the linuxserver or the official container fron syncthing and stick with with. I recommend the “official”, which is documented here:

github.com/syncthing/syncthing

README-Docker.md

main

# Docker Container for Syncthing

Use the Dockerfile in this repo, or pull the `syncthing/syncthing` image
from Docker Hub.

Use the `/var/syncthing` volume to have the synchronized files available on the
host. You can add more folders and map them as you prefer.

Note that Syncthing runs as UID 1000 and GID 1000 by default. These may be
altered with the `PUID` and `PGID` environment variables. In addition
the name of the Syncthing instance can be optionally defined by using
`--hostname=syncthing` parameter.

To grant Syncthing additional capabilities without running as root, use the
`PCAP` environment variable with the same syntax as that for `setcap(8)`.
For example, `PCAP=cap_chown,cap_fowner+ep`.

To set a different umask value, use the `UMASK` environment variable. For
example `UMASK=002`.

This file has been truncated. show original

That container (as does the one from linuxserver) allows you to specify the user and group that the syncthing process will run under.

It’s these lines in the compose:

`environment:
  - PUID=1000
  - PGID=1000`

Those lines show you how to run as user 1000 and group 1000. That’s probably not what you actually want. So go to the Synology UI (User & Group) and create a user for Syncthing. I call my syncthing-docker. Also create a group with the same name and put the syncthing-docker user into it.

Now you need to ssh into your Synology and use the command line to figure out the numeric ID of the syncthing-user and syncthing-group. If you don’t know how to do this, search or use an AI.

Use the user id and the group ID in your compose.

Go the folders that you want to sync and give syncthing-docker write permission.

Hopefully this is enough to get you started.

Tralien · April 26, 2026, 12:44pm

well, I got it working. if you know where to write what it´s easy. thankt to my friends from chatgpt

key was to manually add PUID in configs file and to manually add folder for config file. I cant believe there´s no standard folder for config file.