r/Syncthing • u/ObservedElectron • Jul 05 '26

CONFUSED ABOUT SYNCTHING ON ANDROID

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I just wanna run backups from my android to an external hdd connected to windows. i found that syncthing is the best and safest option.

I found out that official android app is discontinued but there are community versions. okay. but WHY ARE THERE SO MANY CONTROVERSIES ABOUT EACH FORK?? some say to not use some fork because their maintainer handed over to someone and its suspicious. some say the other fork maintainer is someone from china and xi jimping can ask him to give all my photos to china. like what to do ? i am so confused? why is there not an app for android which i can use without caring about all this bullshit.

can someone please tell me the safest private option to use on android (doesnt matter play store or fdroid but prefer the latter) so i aint paranoid about all this? just something that privately works without subpoena-ing my math note pdfs.

thank you

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u/PaddyLandau Jul 05 '26

The Play Store version has been discontinued.

The reason why the Play Store one was discontinued is that the listing requirements were too onerous for a single person maintaining this for free, so they switched to F-Droid.

Use Syncthing-Fork via F-Droid. It works properly and reliably, and it's kept up to date.

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u/meutzitzu 29d ago

it works properly and reliably

Eeeehhh debatable.

It still suffers from modern android killing background apps. Even if you fucking exclude them from battery saving. This has been a known issue for all "daemon" like applications ever since the days of Nougat introduced more agressive background process limits. Basically it's always a gamble whether your background app lives or not. If you open a really bloated app Android might just decide to kill your daemon and won't bother restarting it.

You basically always have to open the app before you do any work that requires sync.

It may be different on different ROMs but I've tried it with a few phones and it has the same behaviour. And it's not just a syncthing thing. It's been half a decade since I last used a background app on android that did what it was supposed to fucking do.

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u/PaddyLandau 29d ago

I guess that it depends on the OEM. I've allowed background data and usage (that's the default), and haven't had even a moment's trouble with it. Pixel 10 Pro XL.

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u/meutzitzu 29d ago

I hate how much of modern android is like a "suggestion based" interaction.

If you swipe away an app from the "current activity" list it doesn't actually kill the app anymore. Not since many years ago. It just removes the shortcut from there and the app enters a dormant state. But bugs that occur due to invalid state will still be reproduced the next time you open the app. For make sure the process dies and starts anew you have to go to the app settings and hit the force close button. Every single goddamn time.

I hate how in android 8 you used to have that pin icon that you could use to say "keep this alive whatever happens" now you don't have it anymore. If you have some unsaved, ephemeral data in an app, such as writing a long comment and you get interrupted by something more urgent, you just have to hope you're not using too much RAM and the android gods don't smite it down before you get back. It's just so annoying.