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.
You can make your own Discord or Discord alternative server
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.
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.
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.
A similar alternative to Pairdrop with a chat UI: https://drop.lol/
Linux pc + android phone - use Syncthing
Linux pc + iPhone - use KDE connect (or GSConnect for GNOME)
FYI syncthing for android is getting discontinued, at least for now. :(
That’s true, but there are some decent forks.
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.
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?
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.
Notes in Google Keep will sync between mobile and web
KDE Connect
Signal
Email
LocalSend
They said good, email can take up to 10min
To send to the same account?
Discord. I have a channel in one of my servers that’s just me.
It’s a huge failure of computing that this is the most convenient and obvious way to do this.
Yep… but if you are on iOS and Mac, copy and paste works perfectly fine and seamless. But any other combination is not good.
*If you have paid for newer gen and all of your iOS and Mac devices are compatible…
FTFY, it’s a heavy caveat that makes 80% of their equipment dead unless you give it a second life with a different operating system. I’ve got perfectly decent devices that are bricks in their current original OS unless I get real technical with it. One I can double the ram capacity in it because for some reason apple throttled it’s size but the hardware is designed for more if you just tweak it.
I wish apple was better about it and the device file transfers was just a staple thing that had since conception. Air transfer is a pain in the ass from past experience and works when it wants to, cloud syncing also works when it wants to even when telling it to update it now. I have a partner who uses apple almost exclusively, it’s so close to being something decent but I can never tell what’s actually going on with a device and there always seems to be some kind of weird hiccup in any process (like 25% of the time, still noticeable from being seamless though).
(I have frustration from this, I apologize for my rant)
I just send an email to myself. sounds like it’s something you wouldn’t be allowed to do but you can
I use Beeper to aggregate messaging from various platforms and for easy availability of text messages on my PC. It has a specific “Note to self” section that I’ve found useful for messaging myself.
At its core, Beeper is just a Matrix client with some pre-packaged bridges for common services (including SMS, MMS, RCS messages). You could probably do the same thing with an Element client.
Email?
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.
Maybe kdeconnect?
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.For sending over small stuff, I usually generate a qr code and scan it with the other device.
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: