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Ask Slashdot: Local Sync Options For Android Mobile To PC?
Bucc5062 writes "A previous mobile phone of mine, a Motorola Razr, had a very nice program call Motocast. With it any pictures and videos would be automatically uploaded to a local/home PC running something akin to a 'cloud' service. This was great tool for I did not want to store files in the greater 'cloud'. the Razr moved on and I currently have two phones at home, neither of which have the same ability to push files to a local PC automatically. I did some research and did not find any good substitute for local cloud type backup so I am putting this out to one of the most diverse crowds I know, Slashdot readers. Zumocast did not look like it did the trick (I don't want streaming to my mobile device) and Delite studios had local cloud, but they make no reference to automatically pushing files to the server. I have people at home who are not tech savvy and would never remember to do it manually. Rolling my one is a long term option though it would require me learning the APIs for Android and I guess Windows. Is there something out that that works as good as Motocast?"
ownCloud seems like a reasonable contender (installation on Debian, at least in the case of a few users and sqlite, is pretty easy). Their Android app has an option to automatically sync videos and photos as they are taken. But are there other options that are easier to install for folks uncomfortable with the idea of running Apache and an SQL server?
You can have Google Plus keep your photos/videos updated in your plus account as private. Then, you can download them to your pc if you need to. It does mean that google has your stuff but don't they anyway with it on your phone? If this bothers you, stop using your phone.
-SaNo
BitTorrent Sync is what you are looking for.
Isn't it obvious to use rsync+ssh for syncing unix to unix?
I don't use that one myself, just first result from google which is free.
There are no atheists when recovering from tape backup.
There's also a "lite" version, which only allows 2 accounts, no Tasker support and no sync filters (which I've never fiddled with anyway, so may not be that important).
fencepost
just a little off
i use iphoto on a Macbook with my galaxy note 3. imports photos when i plug it in and open iphoto
adobe has a cheapo $80 range program as well, can't remember the name. for $120 i think they will sell you the photo and video editing apps together
You didn't manage to find Titanium Backup Pro + (Dropbox | Box | Google Drive)? You clearly didn't look very hard.
BitSync
It enables everything you want and more. Available for Android and apple. But the android version lets you back up anything.
i believe dropbox has an auto upload feature that you can limit to wifi. set up a client on the PC and it will sync the photos there. then just copy them to another folder on the hard drive. google drive should do the same
evil apple has photo sync where you can set up icloud on a PC and have it sync photos as well. very easy to use. just set up icloud on your iphone and the icloud PC client. if you have a macbook then iphoto will just grab your photos out of icloud when you open it up
Syncs images and videos to a SMB share whenever you are connected to your LAN:
https://play.google.com/store/...
Simple and works for me.
I've had trouble with MTP on Linux, and BTSync (http://getsync.com/) has been perfect for any file transfers I need from my phone to my Linux laptop or my Windows 8 desktop. One would just need to set up the picture folder and the video folder for synchronization.
I've been happy with them.
https://www.dropbox.com/
i'm as anti-cloud as it gets ... and i have the perfect setup for your problem, i use a free app called "Samba Network Fileshare" available on playstore, it basically turns the internal storage of your phone into a Windows Networked computer... and it only turns on when my phone is on my local wi-fi.
i then run a batch file every night on my PC using Robocopy to download the entire content and back it up on a server... robocopy only takes the new files or changed files... so every night, i have a full backup of my phone's pictures, apps, etc etc.
A good friend of mine wrote an app called Syncness that will sync music between a windows file share and an android phone. You can use it for other stuff beyond just MP3's though. I'd recommend giving it a try!
ownCloud is a cloud solution that you have control over yourself. It can sync across multiple platforms: windows, Linux, mac, mobile, etc.
Let's make like a bird... and get the flock outta here.
Dropbox. I take a photo on my device, I see the notification in my system tray that it was downloaded to my pc - usually within 15 seconds.
I was looking into similar options - came across BTSync, OwnCloud, and AeroFS as options but haven't really played with any of them yet.
I have yet to try it but polkast might be what you are after
http://www.polkast.com
Consider using Eye-Fi. They have an Android app and Windows software that will move all pictures from your phone to your computer across your local WiFi. It can be configured to use their servers or you can keep it only on your local network. The set up and maintenance is pretty painless. It's intended purpose is to pull photos and videos from your digital camera to Android, but the same app pulls photos and videos taken by the phone.
I have the following configuration working with no manual interaction:
DLSR and Point-n-shoot cameras send to my Android phone. Phone sends these photos to PC along with photos taken by phone. Wife's phone sends photos to PC. They all get automatically organized into directories by date and imported into Picasa.
won't allow the already existing good options to be distributed in the US. My friends in Europe have so many more options than the Republicans here allow us to have. Just as they're keeping us from having usable Internet access (less than 1Mbps here in downtown Seattle), they're also preventing us from having good software options. They force us to buy Microsoft garbage. With Microsoft's strong ties to those racists, we're stuck suffering.
you can always sell it for enough money to get gas to go by an iPhone and have something that works out of the box.
Wireless sync to your own computer built right in.
Similar to Google Plus, the android dropbox app has a setting to automatically upload all your photos/videos on dropbox.
BitTorrent Sync may be able to accomplish what you'd like. See here:
http://www.bittorrent.com/sync/get-started/mobile
You can pick any folder on the phone to sync to other computers running BitTorrent Sync. I've used it on iPhone, Mac OS X, and Linux with much success.
aiCloud from Asus.
All you need is a wifi router and a USB drive.
Has Android and iphone apps.
Even if it has a clunky interface, I enjoy Pogoplug for this reason exactly. It is local storage but it acts as your own personal cloud.
This may be overkill for your needs, but I have a Synology NAS that does this. It's got a Dropbox-like app called Cloud Sync to sync all your devices with your NAS (and will sync WiFi-only for your Android if you want). It also has a separate photo app that will auto-upload your photos to your NAS. It includes many other apps that might interest you as well.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
The only secure way is use a USB cable or your home network to connect the phone to the computer.
I know that one issue, at least with Apple, was that photos could not be deleted from the service. This meant all picture were public always. Now the only issue is if the picture is still in a backup somewhere.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
You can download already made VM images for VMWare, KVM or VirtualBox, or, if you already run Linux and want something lighter than a VM, you can run OwnCloud inside a Docker container.
Dropsync, https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ttxapps.dropsync&hl=en
Cheetah Sync, https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jrtstudio.SyncFolders&hl=en
There's a very simple app called BotSync that can be set to sync a folder either up or down manually or at an interval. It uses SFTP, so no special software is required on your Linux PC. It's pretty barebones, but brain-dead simple.
Other than that, Dropbox is probably the way to go if you want them synced as soon as they're taken. Ubuntu one also has a similar solution that may work for your needs (and do other nifty things as well).
my, your, his/her/its, our, your, their
I'm, you're, he's/she's/it's, we're, you're, they're
If you have a Samsung (which I do) you have have it sync using their Kies software. I don't think you can sync remotely, but you can definitely do it locally over the same wifi network. You can set it to automatically connect and backup when you join the wifi network.
There isn't any good local solution (all of them are buggy or too complicated) but there are plenty of cloud based solution. The Vanilla Dropbox in Android automatically sync photo and videos from phone (you just need to enable the option). Same as SkyDrive (a little buggy). These options are easy to setup and needs no attention from users. If you want to sync some none video/photo folders, you need to buy an app call DropSync Pro ($5), it sync your Android folders just like your Dropbox on PC. The added advantage is you don't need to be at home to sync all these stuffs. I was fixated on using a LAN solution for a long time but finally gave up. The world had moved on and we might as well... Security wise I don't see any particular issues. Most of the cloud storage have no high profile security breach so far. If you have very slow Internet at home it may be an issue, but DropBox is very efficient, it update the files incrementally instead of uploading everything new.
I would suggest Copy.com since unlike Dropbox they don't claim ownership of your files. I realize that the original poster wanted a local fix, but if you want easy the Android client works. If you haven't heard of Copy, it is basically a Dropbox service that is giving away 15GB free for signing up (20 GB if you use a referral link like this one https://copy.com?r=EOFh2o
Any Linux box with ssh on one side. AndFtp Pro on the Android side. Sync function works like a charm. Secure. Ubiquitous. Take as many points as you like for not being 100% FOSS...
I'm not sure if his concern about having stuff in the cloud is because Big Brother is always watching or because Big Brother can tap into the contents of your cloud storage for nefarious purposes.
If it's the latter, then you can easily create a program that will move the contents of your Dropbox folder into another folder in your PC. This way, as soon as a file is synced from your phone to the cloud and then to your PC, your little utility program (set on a timer or on a FileSystemWatcher) will move it, effectively signaling DropBox to delete it from its cloud storage.
Sure, the file may exist on the cloud for a few seconds, but it's a good, easy way to keep your stuff private in the long term.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bittorrent.sync&referrer=utm_source%3Dbittorrent%26utm_medium%3Ddownloads%26utm_campaign%3Dhome
http://getsync.com/downloads
I have had good success with Syncme Wireless. Only works with smb shares, but does the job well.
The pay version unlocks features that allow periodic syncing of files to a ssh server. I have never tried these features , so I dont know how well they work.
it's been said a couple times by now i'm sure.. but i use an instance of owncloud to host/backup/share my
contacts - via CardDav
calendar - via CalDav
pictures/files - via webDav
browser history/bookmarks/addons/prefs - via mozilla_sync (an own cloud app)
i host it on my own hardware, it's basically php+apache (could be nginx or whatever, i happen to be using apache) postgres (could be mysql, whatever else)..
i sync it with thunderbird/lightning (but it'll sync with anything really)
I can't understand why most people aren't doing it.
i don't rely on google, motocast, or any third party for hosting/storing/sharing my data. it's mine own. on my own cloud.
and hell, that's only about a quarter of the functionailty.. owncloud also replaces dropbox, sharepoint, and is slowly replacing googledocs
you can also link owncloud to dropbox/ubuntuone/otherclouddiskprovider and transfer all your junk outta their servers int your servers. you can even link it to other ownCloud instances.
and if you REALLY wanna get fancy, you can even use openswift (the OpenStack storage backend) as your storage underneath..
and since the whole thing's GPL'd i don't feel like a corporate shill for pimping it so hard.
US$0.02++
US$0.02++
Dropbox will also do videos by default along with WiFi only sync. I wouldn't recommend video backup with Cellular data, takes far too long and clogs up your 3G/4G connection with ease. It's perfect for photos though.
The Amarri pray for god, the Caldari pray for profit. the Gallente pray for peace, but the Minmatar pray their ships hol
Buy an iPhone and use iTunes/iCloud. This problem was solved 6 years ago.
I was just looking into this myself so the timing of this /. artical is funny to me.
None the less, I find all of the options to be inadequate. I think the idea of syncing to servers is nice and suits some people, whether it is your own server or someone elses but whatever happended to being able to just sync to the one or two computers that you use on a daily basis? Nothing I know of really seems to do that with an Android phone. Even Apple iThings have that capability!!!!! Why can't someone roll(google, I'm looking at you) a decent way for this to be done with a stock Android phone. Even if they just wrote a spec that all Android releases would conform to then that would give third parties the ability to write programs to interact with the phone in that way. There would no doubt be useful programs written that were both Free/Libre software and non-free.
As of now though, my vote is to roll my own server to sync to for now. I don't want google/dropbox/RandomCompanyThatIsTheNext"BIG"Thing to have my data whenever they want it. I think there are some real privacy concerns with that idea in general. Not to mention to gives incentive to companies to take the user's control away from them just for the sake of maintaining subscriptions.
It does mean that google has your stuff but don't they anyway with it on your phone?
No they don't, you gullible FUD-spreading clown. Google has no way to read the contents of your sdcard remotely, and it's entirely under your control whether/what you choose to sync to their cloud.
I used to have an app that would do this called Phone To Computer. I have delisted that app though and I am currently writing a new one. It will sync any files you want and store all your files on your computer from your device the moment it connects to the same wifi network as your computer. It isn't done yet, but shoot me an email at razs.apps@gmail.com and I'll let you get early access to it when it is ready.
I use bittorrent sync. It works amazingly.
You could try Pogo Plug's Private Cloud, a $50 box you can plug a USB hard drive into and use as your own 'private' cloud. There is sync/streaming/backup software for Andriod and iDevices and backup/management software for Windows and Mac.
Yeah, dropbox really works great for this; I just don't put anything important there out of paranoia. I guess you could use something like EDS on Android to keep stuff in a Truecrypt container which would get synced via dropbox if you're doing anything security critical.
But I don't know of a way to do this purely locally, which is not to say it can't be done!
The Western Digital Cloud enabled NAS drives to exactly this. http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=1140
MEGA has an android app in the Play store now that will auto-upload pics and videos (and my Camscanner pics, I notice). It allows granular control of whether you want to upload over 4G or only over wifi, whether to upload when on battery power, whether to auto-upload at all, etc. Just to rehash for the uninitiated; it's 50G of fully encrypted cloud storage for free, and there is a Dropbox-like auto-folder-sync app for Windows (thus automagically syncing your Android photo uploads to a folder on your Windows machine as well as the cloud) and promised Mac and Linux apps on the way. I've been using MEGA on my Android for a couple of weeks and can't recommend it highly enough.
I run Dropbox on my Nexus 10 tablet and Galaxy III phone. It seamlessly uploads pictures and videos taken with either device to the 'cloud', where they are downloaded into each other's "dropbox folders", as well as my work and home PC's. It's been trivial to set up and use it like this; recommended.
You might want to take a look at BitTorrent Sync: http://getsync.com/
Oh come on, its better then beta, right?
No brain, no pain.
Disclaimer: Posting anonymously as I have an interest in this product and company. A company I never heard of until last year called Intermedia put out a file sync product called SecuriSync. It's Light, and works well. I like it primarily because it's encrypted on the client and never stored unencrypted on their servers. It does everything that Dropbox does and then some, with better security (end to end encryption). There are clients for IOS, MacOS, Windows, and Android. There have been rumors of a Linux client for a while, but nothing yet for Debian or Redhat.
Currently it's a small company and a good product, which if you are security conscience is a good position to be in. I personally don't trust Google, and have had poor experiences with Dropbox support.
PhotoSync - https://play.google.com/store/...
In the app, you specify an SMB share. Any time you take a picture or video, the app will be notified. The next time you're on the same wifi network as your PC, the app will copy the new pictures/videos to the share. Optionally, you can have the app delete the pictures/videos off your phone after a user-defined amount of time after they've been synced, so that you don't run out of space on your phone (unless you set this time threshold longer than it takes to fill up your phone).
When does this happen in the movie?
Airdroid will not automatically synch, but it is a super easy way to install apks and manually transfer files between Android and a browser.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sand.airdroid
Dropsync is an Android app which does true syncing of a directory on your phone to dropbox (in the same way as the desktop app does). To be, this is the one killer application for Android.
Unless you are fundamentally opposed to dropbox for some reason, this is in my opinion the best option.
Combination - fun iPhone puzzling
Bittorent Sync. Works quite well. http://getsync.com/
I use Air Droid and ES file explorer on 3 tablets and 2 phones. Both are free, easy and quick. Air Droid will allow you to download your stuff from Android to a PC very quickly but it is manual, no automation or sync (for free version anyway). ES allows you to use your network to copy from phone to a PC using FTP, SMB/CIFS, or cloud, again, manual and no automation.
I actually made an app for this excact purpose a while ago. It uses a small java program on the PC and will automatically sync any pictures from your phone when you are on the same wifi. It doesn't look like much, but it does what you are asking for and it's free.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dovdev.picsync.android&hl=en
My wife and I use FolderSync (purchased via the Amazon store so we can share the one copy) to sync files with a Linux box via SSH.
As a bonus, we then use Unison to sync that to the Windows PCs and another Linux box that's hosting a website in an offsite datacenter.
Pros: Dirt cheap and easy. Supports files, as opposed to something like Google+ that's only going to sync stuff it knows - photos, etc. For example, it syncs my ebook collection which is a mishmash of formats.
Cons: Slow to sync and poorly managed settings can easily overrun your data cap.
Fortunately, you can set FolderSync to only use WiFi. Next would be adding an app that enables WiFi whenever you're home - then you can schedule the sync to run overnight.
I use a program called Sweet Home to do this exact thing. It can be set to automatically upload pictures when you are on your home wifi, or just when charging.
Connects to a share fairly easily and will even help to organize your pictures for you by date.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=sweesoft.sweethome
Hi
We are working on an open source replacement for btsync, so far there's a ruby client. And we are working in a C++ client that will run on major platforms including Android.
https://github.com/larroy/clearskies_core
You are welcome to join and help develop.
= 0
This was great tool for I did not want to store files in the greater 'cloud'.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
and map to a Samba share (or windows share if you want).
It has the option to sync files or folders, also allow you to set to only do so over Wifi and you set the schedule. Lastly, you also get to pick if the phone is the "master" or if the share server is the "master"
haha haha lmao. You think FB is innocent. How cute! I use FB too. But don't kid yourself. At least with G+, we all know what they are doing.
If that doesn't do the trick, I find that my tablet running Cyanogenmod 10.1.3 has rsync 3.0.7, but I've also installed extra bits and pieces ("Android Terminal Emulator" by Jack Palevich, "Terminal IDE" by Spartacus Rex, "Busybox Pro" by Stephen (stericson)) so I'm not 100% sure that it was originally available. You may be able to script and schedule something of your own based on scripts you use elsewhere, though with a few changes (e.g. "jping" instead of "ping", see Issue 29 on Terminal IDE's code.google.com page though that indicates that it may be fixed).
fencepost
just a little off
I hit Submit too soon on the previous one. Isn't DLNA designed for that kind of in-home streaming of media between devices? If you're rolling your own for the sake of tinkering have at it, but if it's just to stream things around I'd look hard at the existing options first.
fencepost
just a little off
Seconded.
I use FolderSync Lite, which is free, and assign certain folders to be synced using SFTP to a Linux server. Any Linux server running OpenSSH has SFTP built in with no extra parts needed.
The folders are mainly the camera, screenshots, ...etc. You can tell it to only sync when there is WiFi, and when the phone is powered on.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
Surprised nobody mentioned this yet. It will copy files and can be set to fire based on just about any event or condition you can imagine. Really a great tool for all kinds of automation.
I use Bittorrent Sync very effectively for this... doesn't even require a server or anything. Pretty easy to set up on a PC.
One thing I know, and that is that I am ignorant...
I have a free Android app listed on Google Play that may work for you -- SSHelper: https://play.google.com/store/... . It supports SSH, SCP, SFTP and a few other secure shell-related protocols.
As others have already pointed out, BitTorrent Sync is the answer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...
It supports Windows, Mac, Linux, iPhone, Android, you name it.
And you are not limited to syncing between your phone and your PC; you can also sync between multiple PCs and many other devices.
Highly recommended.
The only disadvantage is that it is not open source.
Hopefully the ClearSkies project will succeed, and in the future we will have all these advantages using an open source solution.
This guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inacurate. (from THHGTTG)
I'll add my voice to the recommendations for Bittorrent Sync. It's fast, encrypted, doesn't rely on a third party hosting, and it doesn't even have to leave your LAN if you're at home. Avoiding needlessly uploading over a crappy ADSL connection is a major plus point.
A latent existence
I have a Atrix HD LTE (Similar to a RAZR) and use Ubuntu One rather than Motocast. I found Motocast to be pretty crappy. Ubuntu One works well.
iSyncr does exactly what the OP is asking for. It was built for syncing MP3s from itunes to android, but it can also sync all photos and videos to a directory on the PC that you specify. I back up my media this way over wifi while my phone charges overnight.