KDE Connect
this post was submitted on 04 Jun 2026
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LocalSend on both devices is something I’ve used
I also like LocalSend. Not quite as automagical as airdrop but it’s cross platform
I would argue it being cross-platform is magical.
There also copyparty. I don't personally used it but their release video is fun AF.
On the same network with device discovery localsend can be a good alternative.
It works on most devices, even IOS IIRC
Localsend
PC to phone:
- USB cable
- KDE Connect
- Nextcloud
- Syncthing
PC to PC:
- USB drive
- SFTP
- SSH
- Nextcloud
- Syncthing
Phone to PC:
- USB cable
- KDE Connect
- Nextcloud
- Syncthing
- syncthing (file synchronization)
- kdeconnect (file transfers, clipboard sharing, presentation remote)
- deskflow (keyboard and mouse sharing)
- warpinator (one off file sharing)
- rsync / scp (one off file copies / backups)
For sending files between a phone and a PC, I use KDE Connect.
For sending files between PCs, I use SSH.
Both are really simple and lightweight tools that normally come preinstalled, and you can use them with no configuration.
Adding to this, there's a gnome extension so you can use KDE connect without KDE DE.
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Everyone else mentioned most of what I would suggest.
One is missing for your original problem. Localsend. Think airdrop but cross platform. Super useful if you have a mix of devices (iOS, android, windows, etc…)
There's PairDrop, you can self host it but iirc it transfer via webrtc so as long as the devices 'see' one another there's no mitm.
This is based on Snapdrop. If the current developer hasn’t gone crazy with the fork, you can read the entire source code over a cup of coffee. The server used to just handle discovery/handshake of devices on the same network, with file transfer peer to peer using local addresses.
Edit: Looks like they’ve added transfer over WAN not just local. Privacy discussion here.
Nextcloud
Syncthing for everything: file transfers, backing up phone photos, synced obsidian vaults, etc.
Depends on the scenario, but I'll use KDE Connect, NextCloud, VaultWarden send, or just go old scp.
Taildrop if you use Tailscale.
Surely I can use Syncthing inside Tailscale but 1. I have to depend on their public discoservers, or 2. I have to host and configure the discoserv myself for every client which is tedious to do
In syncthing you can configure ip of a device and you can turn off discovery. You can add devices by id or scanning qr of the id. I have been using that for years since I didn't want third party servers in the equation..
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For phone <-> PC I use localsend. If I do PC to PC, possibly even large amounts of files or large files in general I put them on a network drive specifically intended for that purpose
Honestly, syncthing, croc, vaultwarden send, Send (fork of firefox's send before they discontinued it, still works), Privatebin, etc.
I either use KDE Connect or Pairdrop depending on which devices I am sharing befween
kde connect for most things
copyparty for the rest
For files I use syncthing (also for music/photos/notes/etc... syncing files is IMHO the way to go wherever applicable).
For sending links to my PC (eg. articles linked from podcasts' notes) I used to rely on firefox sync, but I'm starting to distance myself from Mozilla so I am gonna experiment with wallabang.
For sending small notes to myself (stuff that I want to sort or act upon when I get to my PC), I'm using signal's "note to self" but I'm investigating alternatives because signal doesn't mark such messages as unread and so sometimes I forget I've sent some.
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I use Bluetooth. Or if a device doesn't have it, I will drop it into my server with scp or filebrowser.
Copyparty. Or any other web file server.
magic wormhole
Most of the time I use Nextcloud. If I can't wait for the file to sync I'll use either email or a jump drive depending on which devices I'm moving data between. I
If I remember that I can, I'll occasionally use bluetooth to send from my phone to one of my computers.
I use a mix of few things
- kapus.app for starters where a device is completely new and I need to pass some secrets like login to Nextcloud to get keepass or something
- Nextcloud - documents that I rarely access. Some bigger files
- syncthing - for often access files like main keepass. Home server acts as a de-facto hub.
- quick share for an airdrop replacement
- if quick share is not working for some reason I also have a private channel on matrix where I can share some stuff quickly as-hoc
Syncthing. I connect both devices to same Wi-Fi, copy a file to a shared directory, and wait a minute.
KDE connect, sftp, and dropping files on my NAS is pretty much all I do.
Work stuff uses work methods though, work devices are "on" my network but fully segregated, so its thumb drive and sneakernet or our internal storage instead.
my boss just emails stuff to herself.. or just lets it sit in drafts (imap) with the attachment.
i use localsend, wormhole, or similar usually, especially if one or both the devices aren't "mine".. and if it's stuff i'm 'sending' to a handheld from a pc, i might instead drop them somewhere on one of our dietpi boxes and just use http
I always have SSH everywhere on everything and I could never understand why anyone ever would want to make it more complicated than that.
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I have sftp setup on my 2 main PCs and a client on my phone (it's not a server). For the rest of the family who have dual Mint/Windows boots I also have warpinator installed on mine and theirs - it's point to point for the enrolled devices but is currently only setup to work within the LAN.
Primary filesharing is simply the NAS which is visible to all devices on the LAN (can be made available externally but I haven't). This is a recent addition and no one uses warpinator any more.
Edit to clarify I don't have sftp server on phone
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USB Stick and USB wire?
no need to fiddle with an app, nothing to configure, no updates, works even with relatively big file sizes, surprisingly fast?
Used to use syncthing for files, now I just mount smb shares since I finally found how to do it on Android. Also kdeconnect is indispensable tool for me.
feem worked good for me over WiFi, going from grapheneos to Linux mint.
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