Sometime i want to send small messages between devices, such as a url, a note, a id, a token, a piece of code, a picture Especially send between phone and laptop.
Some chatting app have self messages such as telegram saved messages, slack (you), Microsoft team…
However i don’t want a bloated chat app that would took few hundred mb on phone, or required to install an app on my pc (linux which make many app broken). I don’t want work chat app too, because self messages can be seen and scanned by employer (yes, a security add on chatbot on slack warm me because i send something like password to myself on slack)
Something like Opera Flow would fit perfectly, but i don’t want opera browser.
Maybe kdeconnect?
SSH over Tailscale to Termux (all three free) using private-key authentication — two levels of e2ee, and fairly easy to use.
For small bits of text, I use one of these, depending on the direction and the source device:
- Laptop → phone:
xclip -o | ssh phone termux-clipboard-set - Laptop ← phone:
ssh phone termux-clipboard-get | xclip - Phone → laptop:
termux-clipboard-get | ssh laptop DISPLAY=:0 xclip - Phone ← laptop:
ssh laptop DISPLAY=:0 xclip -o | termux-clipboard-set
For larger things, or files, I use
scp. For other devices that I haven’t setup beforehand, or can’t set up (e.g. can’t run arbitrary programs), I connect to my phone’s hotspot, and use Total Commander’s Wi-Fi transfer addon for files (both of which are also free). Small strings I just copy over by eye and hope it goes well.- Laptop → phone:
Try this small web app I made exactly for this https://kapus.app
I love your privacy/security summary. Thank you for your honesty!
This looks like a handy tool.
Thx! I made it for myself one evening when I needed to copy some passwords to my toy android before I managed to have cross platform password manager.
If you use a web email account, just create a draft email and don’t send it. Then log into your email account on the other device and read it there.
This is the poor man’s tech work-around and can indeed confirm it works lol. You are limited by your services upload size though so beware, you might find yourself having to do multiples and then it’s just starting to get inconvenient.
Syncthing.
I use either KDE Connect (/gnome connect), or firefox
Idk why this is so low. Kdeconnect is all about sharing information between devices, url/file even notifications. It also has remote control and ping devices.
QR code reader and generator on both phone and laptop
- Phone: SecScanQR
- Laptop: ZBarCam and Zint
But I’m glad to have learned about LocalSend here so I’m no longer limited to short text snippets
Depending on what your are doing kde connect and/or sync thing
+1 for KDE Connect.
Especially in OPs use case of transmitting small snippets such as urls, the automatic clipboard synchronization should be very useful.
Indeed, if you’re just using devices on the same network, it just shares your clipboard. So if you copy something on one device, paste is available on the other. It’s pretty sweet.
Signal. I use it anyway so it’s not an extra “bloated” app and I know all the secrets I send over the app are encrypted.
If you use a password manager, most have a notes feature that works well too.
+1 for Signal. It’s already on my phone, and already on my PC and laptop. It is a simple Flatpak install on Linux. It’s end-to-end encrypted. I use that for one-off notes and files between my phone and my PC or between my laptop and PC.
For notes and small files that I know I’ll want to save to reference at another time, I put them in my KeePassXC database because that’s already set to sync between devices.
I use the note to self capability of my XMPP server to send a message to myself for these sort of one-offs. I would never want my data in the hands of some proprietary service if I have the option—sharing data just to yourself on these services also means it is Big Tech’s data now too. All of the XMPP clients are super lightweight.
Bigger cases, I will use scp, rsync, or magic wormhole. Or just using removeable storage.
Localsend is a good one to try out. Works with all devices and is pretty fast. It does however require an app to run.
For something you can run off the web on PC you can try pairdrop. This doesn’t require an app to work on PC. Haven’t tried it without the app on mobile so not sure if it will work on there via web.
I prefer Localsend over pairdrop due to local send being completely server less and all local.
A similar alternative to Pairdrop with a chat UI: https://drop.lol/
It’s also worth mentioning that localsend has specific Linux support, so the app should run fine. I use it on my Linux laptop all the time!
Local send works well for me between android and iDevices in most cases. I will say it struggles with VPN’ed connections, which is by design of the network and some VPN will block local connections.
I know sharedrop.io uses a similar web based model as pairdrop and runs into the same VPN issue, but I’m curious if the room function might overcome that in pairdrop.
Despite everything, Telegram is actually great. It’s only bloated if you’re using the features on the device, the client is opensource and native apps for any platforms, it’s very lightweight compared to other messangers and even to some dedicated solutions, it sends stuff p2p on the same network so you don’t need to care about the traffic, but also it allows for on-demand downloads so if you want the stuff will be available outside of your network.
Alternatively, kdeconnect, but I find myself using Telegram instead 9 times out of 10, even though I have both installed.Linux pc + android phone - use Syncthing
Linux pc + iPhone - use KDE connect (or GSConnect for GNOME)
Don’t need a Linux PC to use KDE Connect, it works perfectly fine under windows too
Can you still use KDE connect if my main WM is Sway?
I’m not sure. I would assume that clipboard / file sharing etc would still work, but I have never tried something like that.
Kdeconnect/gsconnect is also on Android
Yes, they are on android but I prefer syncthing over KDEconnect/GConnect, mostly due to the issues I had when trying to use it over vpn.
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I’ve used Syncthing-Fork for years.
Plus, it’s not like it needs much dev anyway, it works, and you can host your own resolver.
That’s true, but there are some decent forks.
KDE Connect
Signal
Email
LocalSend
They said good, email can take up to 10min
To send to the same account?
Not sure, I haven’t done that in a long time.
I’ve been working with this issue for along time. Trying to find something platform agnostic and works with vpns.
App wise, I suggest Localsend for files
Information wise, I suggest Saladroom although there are several alternatives as well like ToffeeShare and ShareDrop
I mostly use Signal though, as it’s the simplest at hand app which fairly reliably makes it accessible to my various devices… With the downside of storing it.
