Best sync option

Hello CalebJohn. I triy with Syncthing but it probably does not work because I do not know how to type the path of the folder “JOPLIN” in settings. Please, show me how to do that.

Usually your home storage on android is under /storage/emulated/0 so if your syncthing directory was named Sync and was in your Documents folder, the whole path would be
/storage/emulated/0/Documents/Sync
And that’s what you would input into Joplin.

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Thanks you CalebJohn. I will try as soon as possible. Currently my smartphone is charging.

@SteveHolle I found this thread while I was searching for Evernote alternatives and ways to sync. I recently started using Syncthing, so this thread caught my eye. :slight_smile: I'm curious to know a few things:

  1. Are you using Syncthng to sync a Joplin sync folder? In other words, are you setting up Joplin to sync to the local file system, then using Syncthing to sync that directory around to other devices?

  2. Did you use encryption within Joplin, and if so, has that caused any issues?

  3. Any tips or info on that Android absolute path issue? :slight_smile: That has always perplexed me as well. I'm not sure if you can sync anything that is on an external SD card on Android, but I'd be interested to hear your experience.

Thanks!

Dave

PC side:
I use an app called SyncTrayzor https://github.com/canton7/SyncTrayzor that works well on the pc. I just add the folders I want to sync. Back up ALL the files you want to sync because you can definitely lose your data. You should start on the PC, or android, where the source file currently reside. In SyncTrayzor you will be using the Folder ID to sync ;the data to your other devices. Once you sign into syncthing you should see the folders available to share on the other devices. You will need to designate the local folder where you want the synced files to reside. You can sync multiple folders between different devices.

Android side:

This is where I had most of my problems. Finding the file path is a PITA! File browsers show different names for the same location. On my MOTO G6 the location I wound up using was “/storage/emulated/0/sync”. As I understand it, this is a location on the SD card that is at an mirrored locating in the system.

Plan the locations out ahead of time. If you start deleting and reinstalling Syncthing you probably will lose your data at some point. I would make sure you have a few backups in case you find something missing at some point.

As a side note, I use KeePass on my pc’s and keepass2android on my phone. I have found that if you use the QuickUnlock feature on the Android the encrypted database won’t update and you can get out of sync. If the database has been changed in multiple places it can be a mess.

I have not used SyncThing encryption since the only personal information I keep on my devices is the encrypted keepass database. I had tried the encryption at one point but wound up with multiple keys that can’t be deleted and it just got too confusing.

I’v had this running pretty stable on 2 pc’s and 2 Android phones for 2 to 3 months. I like the peer-to-peer aspect. It would be really nice to see syncthing incorporated into, or directly supported in Joplin. Seems like a natural, both being open source.

Thanks @SteveHolle. I was wondering though if you are using Syncthing to sync the Joplin database files directly, or if you setup sync to file system WITHIN Joplin first, and then used Syncthing to sync the Joplin sync folder. Sorry, too many uses of the word "sync". :slight_smile:

Also, when I asked about encryption, I meant from within Joplin, not Syncthing. I think Syncthing encrypts data by default while it's in-flight between devices.

I haven't tried using Syncthing with KeePass yet, but thanks for the info about using Quick Unlock. I'll have to test that. I'm still using LastPass, but I let me subscription expire, so I will be converting over to KeePass and using Syncthing to keep that synced among devices as well.

Syncthing is pretty awesome, but I've been struggling to figure out the best folder structure to setup across devices to make the setup as simple as possible. For most things, a common "Sync" folder should work, but I have a lot of stuff I don't want on all devices, so I've been selectively sharing different folders only with the devices I want them synced to.

-Dave

Had to go back and check.

  1. I am using the Joplin “File system” sync and using the directory specified in SyncTrazor.

  2. It was the Joplin encryption I tried to use but had trouble getting set up on all devices. Probably just didn’t understand how it works.

  3. I am using multiple directories and only syncing the pertinent folders on each device. Example: JoplinFileFolder and KeePassFolder. I sync both with my home and phone but only JoplinFileFolder with work. They will show up as separate folders under SyncThing.

  4. I don’t think you will be able to split up the Joplin info but if you figure out how to do it I’d be interested.

Everybody uses multiple devices so that a guide on how to do this with Joplin would be useful.
There are multiple options to consider and one size will not fit all.
I have seen Wikipedia articles that sometimes make excellent tabular comparison of features between options (particularly on tech issues) have proved useful for choosing the best option for me.
It seems a little indirect to have to trawl through multiple threads to piece together the possibilities.
In other words, working out how to use Joplin on multiple devices is, in part, an issue with documentation.
Synching seems to have its problems, but Gdrive and OneDrive have issues too.
I like the idea of Nextcloud but have not done a lot of research on it and have very little experience.
Anything that is FOSS has a lot going for it in the long term, if not for security reasons.
So how to start with NextCloud?
Here are two guides to consider.

Nextcloud Self-hosted Cloud Storage Review
Category: Cloud Storage & Backup
Last Updated: 28 June 2019
Comments: 0
Written by Douglas Crawford
https://proprivacy.com/cloud/nextcloud-review

note: The main problem is that Nextcloud’s e2ee implementation is still in “alpha” or “testing” phase, with a clear warning which says “don’t use this in production and only with test data!”

Nextcloud has many ways it can be deployed. These are discussed here.
How to create your own secure cloud storage: Nextcloud
ProPrivacy
Category: Guides
Last Updated: 1 July 2019
Comments: 0
Written by Douglas Crawford
https://proprivacy.com/guides/how-setup-nextcloud-hosted

Thanks for all the extra details @SteveHolle! I haven’t migrated over to Joplin yet, but plan to work on that this weekend and I’ll post any interesting findings here.

Ok…I found some missing notes in my android joplin sync directory. Looked in my PC shared directory and compared the latest joplin files and they match.

At this point, I believe that what I previously stated worked initially but the “sync” is diverging as time goes on. It seems like the Notebook and note locations seems to get scrambled. For example, on my PC joplin I have the following structure:

Android (Notebook)

Joplin (Notebook)

t99 (Note)

Syncing with Syncthing (Note)

On the Android Joplin I have the following structure:

Android (Notebook)

T100 (Note)

Tasker (Notebook)

5 different notes

Joplin (Notebook)

t99 (note)

I don’t find Syncing with Syncthing (Note) on the Android even when looking at “All Notes”.

I’m not sure what else is out of sync or missing and don’t know how to fix it.

Any ideas?