Edit: Thanks for all the suggestions. I’m going to try sticking with syncthing and try the fork of the UI and see if that keeps everything working.

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I want to sync files between my linux PC and Android phones (mostly for Obsidian notes).

Can anyone recommend a good real-time sync?

I’ve been trying syncthing, but despite turning off battery optimization for the app, it rarely sees the phone as connected. I don’t want to have to remember to check syncthing every time I edit a note.

I use resilio for syncing between PCs but it looks like it has a high battery usage on the phone, as if it is frequently polling for changes.

I use FolderSync for occasional scheduled syncs (e.g. updating my MP3s from the server to my phone), but a scheduled sync either is frequent enough to affect battery or it risks sync conflicts.

Cloud services such as OneDrive, Dropbox and Google Drive don’t show up as big battery drains, so I assume that they use change notifications from the OS instead.

Are there any real-time 2-way sync apps for phone that don’t have big battery drain and are not for cloud providers?

  • Handles@leminal.spaceEnglish
    41·
    1 month ago

    Yeah, phone to laptop, and I recently synced all backups and files from an old phone to a new one, too. Once you have the computer setup, you can basically connect phones by reading its QR code.

    If the official Syncthing Android app is giving you a hard time, maybe try Syncthing-fork? IIRC that’s only the daemon and web GUI wrapped as an app. But I’ve used the main app only for the past few years.

    • BearOfaTime@lemm.eeEnglish
      3·
      1 month ago

      Fork works much better on Android, largely because it moves sync conditions into the individual sync jobs (what ST calls folders).

    • bandwidthcrisis@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      3·
      1 month ago

      I have the phones connected, but the app just decides to disconnect and stay that way until I check it. I’ll give that fork a try, thanks!

      • Handles@leminal.spaceEnglish
        2·
        1 month ago

        Perhaps your phone has extra aggressive battery saving settings that kill the background process? The official Syncthing has a setting to run as a persistent service, which always helped me.

        Otherwise see if you can make system exceptions for the app to run in the background, and allow it to auto-sync. It’s been a while since I used the forked app, buy it did help me out on a device where the official didn’t work for me.

        Hope this helps.