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?
Resilio sync is outstanding
It’s free for personal use, but the license process is annoying (email)
I’d like to use resilio, I even bought a license to support it as I use it for all my pc syncing. But it’s currently showing 41% battery use for today on my phone for 2 minutes screen time 11.5 hours background. Lenny Voyager shows 7% for 1.5 hour screen time. So something is not good with the phone app. Maybe the Android battery info display is misleading somehow (it confuses me because it shows a percentage of the time-interval you’re viewing, not a percentage of the total battery drain(.
Yea, I like Resilio, but it’s a battery and ram hog.
Syncthing should work fine for you.
Does your phone have some custom battery management? Some vendors do that, and it causes issues.
The only setting I see is “allow background usage”, which is on (I’m using it on a Pixel 7 and 8).
Pixel is clean, from a battery saver perspective, so that’s probably not your issue.
Not sure what to do next. I’ve used it for about 10 years now, and keep gobs of stuff in sync with it.
I do recommend Syncthing-Fork for Android, it moves the sync conditions into the individual since folders, so you get finer control.
Do you get any errors on the desktop console? On Android, if you launch the web client you get much more info and configuration capability (Menu - Web GUI). Once there, click the gear at the top right, and open Logs. Maybe there’s something there that can help.
I’m trying the fork now, thanks. So far, it’s behaving. Thanks for the pointer to the logs, I’ll take a look if it happens again.
That’s a good call out. My user case allows me to terminate the phone app after it syncs, and battery doesn’t seem to be hit hard even if I forget. But it’s important to look at, and it might not work for you.