As I’m using it for years, I may be helpful if needed.
Of course it is « just » a folder synchronisation tool, it’s not an android mirroring thing.
Some of my use cases :
⋅ at home on our own desk⋅lap⋅top pc, team and I can have a session which is exactly the same as the one of the work place, automatically sync’ed,
⋅ at work, each and any « personal folders » of the team is sync’ed on a « always online » device to ease sharing / backing up / adding temporarily or permanently new devices needing those folders,
⋅ I snapshot / backup daily the « always online » device ( backintime, luckybackup, dejadup, rsync your choice ).
It avoided me to set a webserver with things like nextcloud/cozy which seemed to me way more demanding to « orchestrate » ( I have almost zero knowledge about webservers and their related security ).
Just install syncthing on each device, exchange the key-id between those that need sharing, and voilà.
Well, curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to give Syncthing a try. I have never heard of it before, but I have been looking for a quick and easy way to have certain files synced between three different PCs. It wasn’t too bad to set up, and I am actually quite happy with it. Its fairly quick and transparent, and I like that it works just as well over the internet as it does on my LAN. So I will say thank you for this info.
SyncThing is really for 2-way syncing only. And deleting a file or folder will be synced accross all devices.
As soon as you set it to ignore deletes or even sync 1 way, you get the craziest unexpected behaviour.
As long as 2-way sync including delete actions is desired, I believe SyncThing is king, lightweight and has the highest possible speed. On a phone you can set it to only sync when charging + connected to WiFi.
But this also means it is not a complete alternative to OneDrive/Google Drive. I have experimented with NextCloud and 3 other alternatives… eventually it seems FileRun is the way to go. More lightweight then all other solutions and a perfect addition to SyncThing while keeping things simple.
It allows 10 user accounts for free for home use. Which should be plenty for home users plus some outside family/friends.
Still all of these solutions are not really an answer to the original question. A way to quickly share a link, piece of text or file to/from your phone, without having an always on server.
Apart from setting it up:
If I would have stuff in my SyncThing folder on my phone and now quickly need to turn on my laptop and share a new single file, I would have to wait for it to sync fully both ways… even if my battery percentage is a bit low and I don’t want to waste it on syncing the whole folder.
I don’t fully agree about that. It’s not unexpected but it’s true when setting primary/secondary or unilateral synchronization, it quickly adds some complexity that requires more thoughtful attentions.
Hence options for versioning files, or having a « trash » to store deleted ones a certain amount of time.
That, you are totally right. It only synchronizes given folders. No link sharing.
You may use the synchronized folder to store your notes, pieces of text, files between a phone and any other device, with no need of an always online server.
But yes, devices need to see each other online to communicate.