Syncthing for Android is being discontinued, but there's an alternative app you can switch to
The Syncthing for Android app is being discontinued. Another day, another good app dies. For those unaware, Syncthing is an open source file synchronization program that can sync files between two or more devices on a local internet connection, it's similar to the macOS/iOS AirDrop feature.
It's a really useful app to sync your music or video library between your phone and computers, I have also used it to sync my Keepass database, game saves and savestates for Retroarch, PPSSPP on my devices.
As a big fan of Syncthing, I reviewed a Windows client for it called SyncTrayzor, though the app has not been updated for a long time. Syncthing Tray is an alternative Windows app that you may want to take a look at.
Why is Syncthing for Android being discontinued?
Imsodin (Simon Frei), the maintainer of Syncthing for Android, has announced that the app was being retired due to some issues with the Google Play Store, which was making it harder to publish the app. Google was reportedly rejecting the app access to the device's storage, and the developer had appealed to the company to sort out the issues since February 2024.
Users had asked why the app cannot continue to exist via GitHub and F-Droid, and another maintainer explained that the development of Syncthing's mobile app had been stagnating, and it had been on life support for a long time.
According to some comments from users, the developer was frustrated with dealing with Google, and users who had harassed him. Well, I can see why he may have lost motivation to continue supporting the app's development. This is why we can't have nice things, because some people don't respect the work of others.
The Syncthing for Android app will get its final update in December 2024, on GitHub and F-Droid. It is worth mentioning that Syncthing for other platforms will continue to be supported.
More info on the problems the Syncthing devs had with Google can be found here. This is not the first time an app developer has had issues with the Play Store. The developer of the open source email app, FairEmail, had some problems with Google and temporarily delisted the app from the Play Store, before reinstating it. Total Commander, which is a popular file manager app, was forced to make changes or risk being removed from the Play Store. Reddit's r/Androiddev sub has many stories about app takedowns and account terminations by Google. Apps could be delisted if they break some policies, but that's not the main issue, many developers say they had absolutely no way to contact an actual person at the company and resolve the problems.
Syncthing alternative for Android
It's sad to see an open source app end like this, but you can probably continue to use Syncthing as long as it works. Or you can optionally switch to a fork of the app, which is called Syncthing-Fork. In addition to retaining the original app's functionality, Syncthing-Fork comes with some extra features and battery friendly enhancements.
The only downside to it is that the app is no longer available on the Google Play Store, so you will need to sideload it on your phone. You can download Syncthing-Fork from its GitHub page or from the F-Droid repository. iPhone users who want to use Syncthing may want to look at Möbius Sync, though it is not completely free to use.
Do you use Syncthing on your Android phone?
“Android continues to deteriorate under Google. It’s time to divide them.”
You mean the same way M$ was “divided” after being spanked with a convicted monopoly status?
I thought M$ was going to be “divided” but nothing of the kind happened, IIRC.
I’d rather have Google than M$.
Zerotier, Tailscale and Hamachi are free alternative solutions. They make your home network privately accessible from anywhere with zero setup cost. So if you share files on your home network those folder, files, web servers, dns servers, whatever you can think of can be available. No need for a sync app when you can modify the file directly.
Except I often want the files on the devices I am syncing them on, particularly a mobile device that might be offline when I want to use the files.
Judge Donato backed down on new laws against the google monopoly on Android so stuff like this is expected. I mean google governing your entire personal device is just asking for trouble.
A key reason why chromebooks will never have a place in my home or hopefully in society in general.
Most people have already failed it up when it came to giving one entity almost complete domain over web browsing and web standards and have only started to wake up to it in recent times so I wouldn’t hold much hope for things to get better any time soon.
Honestly Donato failed it up big time and set us back decades.
So no real reason but “I am a weird developer and I get tired of users”? how is this Google’s fault? the worst part is the article is like “oh let some security issues slide becasue we need this app” and people would probably justify that by saying how some maliceious apps have existed in store blaba.
So how can a ‘fork’ exist and not the official one? sounds more like excuses or the usual dev that wants to blame everyone else when they get tired to justify if they stop developing an app.
in the end, Syncthing, while useful, it wasn’t even that great, there are tons of ways to do the same today, they make it seem like Syncthing can’t be replaced by pretty much anything, so oh well.
I don’t know about that and do admit that some developers can be flaky but I am not sure if that can be the case with just about every other developer that has had issue with google. (I am aware that the dev of FairEmail has come under fire for being temperamental before) but I have also noted that some apps have had to make token non updates to their app just to appease google.
I know that recently some apps have vanished from the play store and had their developer account disabled due to them not keeping up to date with Google’s new requirements (whatever that may be) and due to the developer being busy and unaware of the situation he did not notice until he was notified of his app being removed.
Some apps have vanished altogether and may never return which may leave former users of said apps with an uneasy feeling as usually this kind of thing happens due to their being a security issue or the app being malicious which is not the case for a large majority of these apps but they have been removed nonetheless. Meanwhile apps have had to make token non updates to their apps just to justify their existence to google on the apps store.
The Fork can exist but not on the google play store so that is probably enough reason not to bother with the google play store.
Obtanium is a far better option for maintaining apps as an end user. The only thing it is missing is an ability to scrape apps and have a searchable front end as a store front. It probably could be added to help discoverability of some of the great apps that exist outside of the play store but that is probably a large undertaking for the dev of obtanium and would perhaps require some support from app makers on various gits and such.
I put music files on my phone by visiting snapdrop.net.
Android continues to deteriorate under Google. It’s time to divide them.
All part of Googles grand plan to squeeze out all developers so they can instead offer their own similar apps. In the name of security, of course…
sad news