Discontinuing syncthing-android
forum.syncthing.net
Unfortunately I don’t have good news on the state of the android app: I am retiring it. The last release on Github and F-Droid will happen with the December 2024 Syncthing version. Reason is a combination of Google making Play publishing something between hard and impossible and no active maintenance. The app saw no significant development for a long time and without Play releases I do no longer see enough benefit and/or have enough motivation to keep up the ongoing maintenance an app requires ...

Announcement by the creator: https://forum.syncthing.net/t/discontinuing-syncthing-android/23002

Unfortunately I don’t have good news on the state of the android app: I am retiring it. The last release on Github and F-Droid will happen with the December 2024 Syncthing version.

Reason is a combination of Google making Play publishing something between hard and impossible and no active maintenance. The app saw no significant development for a long time and without Play releases I do no longer see enough benefit and/or have enough motivation to keep up the ongoing maintenance an app requires even without doing much, if any, changes.

Thanks a lot to everyone who ever contributed to this app!

  • imsodin@infosec.pubEnglish
    1301·
    2 months ago

    I am not the creator, funnily that is/was one of the Lemmy creators: Nutomic :)
    I am a syncthing co-maintainer that kept the android app on life support since a while.

    • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      27·
      1 month ago

      THANK you for the hard work! Your app is part of my phone photo and appdata backup.

      Side question: Will you continue with a fork for f-droid?

      • imsodin@infosec.pubEnglish
        211·
        1 month ago

        As the statement says I wont - it will be fully discontinued. This statement applies to the official app only. It doesn’t say anything about other apps or forks - any existing once can and hopefully will continue to exist. Also all the code is free.

        • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          7·
          1 month ago

          Sad to hear but my point still stands: Thank you very much for your work.
          Any recommendation for an Android fork or any other way to make it work on mobile without an app (if that’s even possible)

        • dan@upvote.auEnglish
          3·
          1 month ago

          In that case, could the syncthing-fork app be renamed to syncthing, now that it’ll probably be the main Android app for Syncthing?

    • uis@lemm.eeEnglish
      1·
      1 month ago

      funnily that is/was one of the Lemmy creators: Nutomic :)

      Plot twist

  • Churbleyimyam@lemm.eeEnglish
    99·
    2 months ago

    I’ve installed it from F-droid but still. Fuck google. They really do need breaking up.

    I heavily rely on Syncthing. Does anyone know what the outlook is for Syncthing-fork, or what the likelihood is of someone taking on maintenance of this version?

    • iturnedintoanewt@lemm.eeEnglish
      47·
      2 months ago

      The way i understand it, this stops maintenance for Syncthing, but Syncthing-fork in fdroid will continue its development and support as usual. Both show if you do a Syncthing search in fdroid. The fork is more up to date with features.

        • dan@upvote.auEnglish
          7·
          1 month ago

          Good idea to send donations to the syncthing-fork devs to keep it alive though.

    • Auli@lemmy.caEnglish
      6·
      1 month ago

      Yah I mean the notice for the storage access has only been five years. How can they do that.

  • el_abuelo@programming.devEnglish
    74·
    1 month ago

    I just installed syncthing-fork from f-droid and it worked flawlessly as far as I can tell:

    1. “Export” in syncthing
    2. Uninstall syncthing
    3. Install syncthing-fork from f-droid
    4. Import in syncthing-fork
    • Unbecredible@lemm.eeEnglish
      35·
      1 month ago

      I feel the existence of an “export” option in a piece of software is noble in this day and age, and I’m so appreciative of it.

      It says “look, I don’t WANT you to go to my competitor, but I’m not gonna try to hold your data hostage to prevent it.”

      It’s class, as the Scottish would say.

      • dan@upvote.auEnglish
        9·
        1 month ago

        Open source software doesn’t have a reason to lock you in like proprietary software does :)

        More and more proprietary SaaS systems are allowing data exports now, to comply with laws like the GDPR “right to know”. Say what you want about Google and Facebook, but they were the first big companies to start allowing data to be exported before there was any law requiring it - Facebook in 2010 and Google in 2011.

      • Dasnap@lemmy.worldEnglish
        7·
        1 month ago

        I’ve said for a while that platforms that allow you to easily move make me more comfortable using them, and ironically, more likely to stay around.

    • stardust@lemmy.caEnglish
      14·
      1 month ago

      Did it transfer over your folder setups so you don’t need to set it up manually?

    • imsodin@infosec.pubEnglish
      422·
      2 months ago

      Oh don’t worry to much, mine too: If there wasn’t an alternative for syncthing on android, I might have kept it on lifesupport :)

        • iturnedintoanewt@lemm.eeEnglish
          361·
          2 months ago

          Syncthing-fork. Both show if you search for Syncthing in fdroid. Since imsodin seems to be OP Dev maintainer for Syncthing, i think he is referring to the fork.

          • fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.ccEnglish
            15·
            1 month ago

            Ooh.

            Thanks.

            I’ve been running the fork for a long time but somehow figured it was a soft-fork and maybe not really viable without upstream development from syncthing.

            Now @[email protected] 's comments are making a lot more sense.

            This whole thing is more or less a non-issue then?