Bring up to Date

This project was discontinued by its original maintainer. This repository will be an attempt to resurrect the project, with the primarly goal of using it for personal uses and without intention to solve the issues with or publish to the Google Play store at this time.

Discontinued

This app is discontinued. The last release on Github and F-Droid will happen with the December 2024 Syncthing version. Interactions (issues, PRs) are limited now, and the entire repo will be archived after the last release. Thus all contributions are preserved for any future (re)use. The forum is still open for discussions and questions. I would kindly ask you to refrain from trying to challenge the decision or asking "why-type" questions - I wont engage with them.

The reason is a combination of Google making Play publishing something between hard and impossible and no active maintenance. The app saw no significant development for a long time and without Play releases I do no longer see enough benefit and/or have enough motivation to keep up the ongoing maintenance an app requires even without doing much, if any, changes.

Thanks a lot to everyone who ever contributed to this app!

syncthing-android

A wrapper of Syncthing for Android.

Translations

The project is translated on Hosted Weblate.

Dev

Language codes are usually mapped correctly by Weblate itself. The supported set is different between Google Play and Android apps. The latter can be deduced by what the Android core framework itself supports. New languages need to be added in the repository first, then appear automatically in Weblate.

Dev Setup

To develop using Android Studio, install Android Studio and the Android SDK/NDK, then set persistent environment variables. Use the IDE SDK Manager for GUI installs or the command line for scripted installs.

1. Install Android Studio

   • Download and install from https://developer.android.com/studio.
   • On first run open Tools → SDK Manager:
     • Under SDK Platform, install an Android SDK Platform (e.g. Android 36).
     • Under SDK Tools, install
       • Android SDK Build-Tools
       • Android SDK Platform-Tools
       • Android SDK Command-line Tools.
       • “NDK (Side by side)” and a specific NDK version required by the project (or use the same version referenced in the Dockerfile).
   • (Optional) Install CMake if prompted.

2. Install or update SDK/NDK from the command line (optional)

   • Use the SDK command-line tools (sdkmanager). Example:

     sdkmanager "platform-tools" "build-tools;33.0.2" "platforms;android-33" "ndk;25.2.9519653" "cmdline-tools;latest"
     

   • Replace versions with the ones your build requires.

3. Set persistent environment variables

   • Windows (use System → Advanced system settings → Environment Variables or run as Administrator):
     • Recommended: open “Edit the system environment variables” UI and add/modify variables.
     • ANDROID_HOME=C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\Android\Sdk
     • NDK_VERSION=29.0.14206865

4. Install Go

   • winget install GoLang.Go

5. Verify installation

   $env:ANDROID_HOME
   go version
   java -version         # must be Java 21
   

Notes

• Use the exact SDK/NDK versions required by the project (see docker/Dockerfile or project docs).
• Prefer setting ANDROID_SDK_ROOT (or ANDROID_HOME as a legacy alias) and ANDROID_NDK_HOME so build tools and Gradle can find the SDK/NDK.
• On Windows prefer the Environment Variables UI to avoid PATH truncation issues with setx.
• After setting these variables, Android Studio and command-line builds (./gradlew assembleDebug, ./gradlew buildNative) should find the SDK/NDK automatically.

Building

These dependencies and instructions are necessary for building from the command line. If you build using Docker or Android Studio, you don't need to set up and follow them separately.

Dependencies

1. Android SDK and NDK

   1. Download SDK command line tools from https://developer.android.com/studio#command-line-tools-only.

   2. Unpack the downloaded archive to an empty folder. This path is going to become your ANDROID_HOME folder.

   3. Inside the unpacked cmdline-tools folder, create yet another folder called latest, then move everything else inside it, so that the final folder hierarchy looks as follows.

      cmdline-tools/latest/bin
      cmdline-tools/latest/lib
      cmdline-tools/latest/source.properties
      cmdline-tools/latest/NOTICE.txt
      

   4. Navigate inside cmdline-tools/latest/bin, then execute

      ./sdkmanager "platform-tools" "build-tools;<version>" "platforms;android-<version>" "extras;android;m2repository" "ndk;<version>"
      

      The required tools and NDK will be downloaded automatically.

      NOTE: You should check Dockerfile for the specific version numbers to insert in the command above.

2. Go (see https://docs.syncthing.net/dev/building#prerequisites for the required version)

3. Java version 11 (if not present in $PATH, you might need to set $JAVA_HOME accordingly)

4. Python version 3

Build instructions

1. Clone the project with

   git clone https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing-android.git --recursive
   

   Alternatively, if already present on the disk, run

   git submodule init && git submodule update
   

   in the project folder.
2. Make sure that the ANDROID_HOME environment variable is set to the path containing the Android SDK (see Dependecies).
3. Navigate inside syncthing-android, then build the APK file with

   ./gradlew buildNative
   ./gradlew assembleDebug
   

4. Once completed, app-debug.apk will be present inside app/build/outputs/apk/debug.

NOTE: On Windows, you must use the Command Prompt (and not PowerShell) to compile. When doing so, in the commands replace all forward slashes / with backslashes \.

License

The project is licensed under the MPLv2.