Installation and setup of a multi-platform file synchronization to sync your data between your devices.
Syncthing is an open source and free to use synchronization client which let’s you share unlimited data between multiple devices not storing them anywhere but on your own devices. I personally use it to share my music library, datasets for work and even configuration files and other scripts between my PCs. It is also cross-platform and beside applications for Windows and Linux I am also using the Android application to sync photos and music.
Windows setup
- Download the latest version of
syncthingfrom the official website - Extract code
- Paste into
C:/Program Files/syncthing - Run
syncthing.exe
After this a browser should open where you can setup your first file synchronizations.
To make an autostart, do the following:
- Press
Win + Rand typeshell:startupfollowed by Enter - Right click into opened explorer,
New,Shortcut - Enter
"C:/Program Files/syncthing/syncthing.exe" -no-console -no-browser - Give appropriate name like
syncthing_bg - Restart your computer
- Open a browser at
127.0.0.1:8384to check if the autostart worked
To allow automatic updates, we need to first modify the permissions for the syncthing folder:
- Open Explorer
- Navigate to
C:\Program Files - Rightclick syncthing and add full permissions for Users
ArchLinux or Manjaro setup
- Install the software through
sudo pacman -S syncthing - Start the synchronization service using
sudo systemctl start syncthing@<username>.service - Autostart enable through
sudo systemctl enable syncthing@<username>.service - Configuration through browser GUI, simply visit
127.0.0.1:8384
For more information, see: ArchLinux Wiki
Remote setup on a Raspberry Pi (headless)
In case you want to setup syncthing on e.g. a Raspberry Pi, you might want to access the Pi remotely through the browser. By default, this is disabled. To change this, edit your ~/.config.syncthing/config.xml and remove the IP in the field <address> so that only :8034 is remaining. Note that you should immediately setup your username and password by accessing the Pi through IP:PORT from your e.g. laptop browser.