Does HN know any good tools to share stuff between Windows/iOS/OS X?

Posted by NaturalPhallacy on Thursday June 23, 2022 @08:40PM
from the self-post dept.

I realize that Microsoft, Apple et al don't necessarily like to make their stuff super interoperable, but surely after this many decades there's something that works well.

I used to use something called PushBullet which is now defunct. It was nice because it would actually push the data. Now I use AirDroid which is really clunky on Windows.

Apple has AirDrop, but that doesn't help with my Windows (gaming/primary) computer.

Why is there no easy LAN protocol or software for sharing stuff between all my machines like URLs, pictures, files that crosses the OS/Company boundary?

Does anybody know of something that works well between iOS devices, Windows, and OS X that's better than AirDroid?

( 7 comments | 2 points | on HN )

Re:Does HN know any good tools to share stuff between Window... by armchairhacker on Thursday June 23, 2022 @08:55PM (#31856802)

Unfortunately all of these have some kind of drawback but in most cases any one of them should work.

- send-anywhere.com. This one is super easy and always works, you can even send over different networks. But there are ads and I don't 100% trust if the company has access to the data you send. I recommend this one if you have uBlock and don't care.

- webwormhole.io. Drawback: doesn't always work. Out of the other non-working tools this one is most reliable but still, sometimes it just doesn't work (maybe LAN issue?)

- snapdrop.net. Drawback: doesn't always work.

- KDE Connect. Drawback: doesn't always work, for example between mac and debian.

- USB stick. Best one by far if you actually have it, doesn't even need wifi. But of course you can't transfer between mobile. Also: your USB must be formatted to FAT32 or some OSs won't support it.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Does HN know any good tools to share stuff between Window... by smoldesu on Thursday June 23, 2022 @08:48PM (#31856757)

KDE Connect works well on most things I use it with, but hunting down the builds for Windows/OSX is difficult, and might not be super well-maintained. For example, KDE Connect will share files between my devices just fine on Mojave, but it's broken beyond Big Sur afaict.

As someone who mainly shuffles things around Linux/Android/Windows devices, this is pretty much perfect for me. YMMV: https://kdeconnect.kde.org/

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Does HN know any good tools to share stuff between Window... by al_borland on Thursday June 23, 2022 @10:17PM (#31857157)

Check out Share Drop. I ran across it a while ago and kept it in my back pocket incase I needed something like this. Almost everyone I know uses Apple stuff, so I haven’t really used it in the wild yet.

https://www.sharedrop.io/

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Does HN know any good tools to share stuff between Window... by SentientOctopus on Friday June 24, 2022 @10:46AM (#31862851)

Not sure if this covers your use case, but I use https://syncthing.net/ to synchronize folders between all my devices. Highly recommended.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Does HN know any good tools to share stuff between Window... by yuppie_scum on Thursday June 23, 2022 @08:47PM (#31856756)

I’m signed into slack on all these. So I just DM files to myself.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Does HN know any good tools to share stuff between Window... by Mandatum on Thursday June 23, 2022 @10:59PM (#31857329)

You could Google Drive but the "upload file" and "view file" is a bit shit on some platforms (mobile).

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Re:Does HN know any good tools to share stuff between Window... by nathants on Friday June 24, 2022 @01:35AM (#31858140)

email draft with attachment.

[ Parent | on HN ]