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by a7fort2 days ago |
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upvoteby d3Xt3r2 days ago|
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I'm curious, what do you people use this for? What are all these (presumably large) files that you guys are generating and transferring, that requires the use of apps like these?

Like in my case, the only files I generate on my phone are photos and videos, and these get backed up by Immich, which I can then share with someone by sending them a link to the files/album in question. I imagine normal folks would use iCloud or Google Photos for the same task.

For syncing other files like documents and such, I use ownCloud OCIS, and I'd imagine most other folks would use something like DropBox or iCloud, or even just email or WhatsApp the files.

For local network transfers of say ISOs or something, I'd just copy them over SMB, which is pretty much universal and doesn't need any special app. Or even just plug in a hard drive, if I'm doing backups.

So I don't understand why I should be using this.

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upvoteby RandallBrown2 days ago|
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Sending someone a link to a photo is a much worse experience than sending them the actual photo directly to their phone.

Sending a photo over text message often compresses it, which isn't always desirable. (Not actually sure if it gets compressed when sent of iMessage)

I've also used it to send people photos when we were in places without cell service like on hiking and camping trips.

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upvoteby michaelscott2 days ago|
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For me, video is the main one. Sizes from 100MB - 3GB. Getting videos from an Apple device to an Android is a pain in the ass because I need to 2FA log in or click through something relatively convoluted (Dropbox, GDrive) or deal with pulling out some hardware I use once every 100 years (external drives). Localsend is a 2 or 3 click operation and very robust.
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upvoteby inquirerGeneral2 days ago|
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Luckily, Google enabled Airdrop inside of Quick Share so my phones and my MacBook and my Windows PC all can share now.
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upvoteby energy1232 days ago|
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Sending plain text from one device to another. I was debugging my steamdeck and I send code snippet from desktop chatgpt to steamdeck using Localsend to run. Then I send the debug output (also plaintext) back to desktop to ask chatgpt what to try next. Other than this, random small files from time to time. The app is lightweight and just works.
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upvoteby Obscurity43402 days ago|
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Threema's better for that use case
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upvoteby brianwmunz2 days ago|
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I use it for moving SSH keys, VPN configs, and .env files between my laptop and a work machine. Obviously don't want that sitting in dropbox, pasted into Slack, etc. Localsend on the same network, gone in two seconds no account and no history. Easier than spinning up scp every time.
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upvoteby burner355342 days ago|
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I only use it for sending a bunch of photos that wouldn't go so well over iMessage, usually on vacation. And sometimes that vacation involves not having cell service. Otherwise I'll usually message a single photo to someone because AirDrop is finicky.
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upvoteby Scarbutt2 days ago|
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Silly apple. They should remove airdrop and tell users they have to rely on an internet connection and use whatsapp or email for quick, one-off file transfers between their iphones and macbooks.
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upvoteby internet1010102 days ago|
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I use LocalSend a lot to send my clipboard or random files when I don't feel like using ssh or using NAS as intermediary.
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upvoteby internet_points2 days ago|
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my kid recently wanted to transfer a picture from an iPad drawing app to a windows laptop, I wish I knew about localsend for that
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upvoteby 2 days ago|
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deleted
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upvoteby dmak2 days ago|
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Have you tried troubleshooting those issues already? I had similar visibility issues in the past, but seems to always work now for me.
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upvoteby tonyedgecombe2 days ago|
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I think it initiates the connection over Bluetooth so if your Bluetooth is poor it isn’t going to work very well.
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upvoteby OGWhales2 days ago|
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Yup, for me I can see the device but when I try to initiate a send it just doesn't show up on the other device about half the time. I've not found a reliable way to fix it either, toggling AirDrop on and off on both devices seems the best way to fix it but only works like 70% of the time.
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