Guide on using custom syncing setup to sync data

[trymeouteh]

Preflight Checklist

• I have read the Contributing Guidelines for this project.
• I agree to follow the Code of Conduct that this project adheres to.
• I have searched the issue tracker for a feature request that matches the one I want to file, without success.

Problem Description

There is a guide in the app on what folder you use to add recipes, but no instruction on how to setup Syncthing or a cloud storage syncing such as Filen, Google Drive, Dropbox to sync data between two or more computers.

Proposed Solution

A guide in the app on how to setup a syncing tools. The guide will explain what folders you need to sync and what to keep in mind when using a syncing solution.

Alternatives Considered

None

Additional Information

No response

[SpecialAro]

Hello @trymeouteh !

We currently have no tool supporting sessions sharing (to keep services logged in) between two computers. Actually, I've been building myself a tool to enable this feature with we sockets and end-to-end encryption (to share session data).

If you use Ferdium Server (or if you self-host Ferdium server yourself) you are able to connect to that server in order to sync some settings (found out that some of them are not being synced correctly tho) and all the recipes you have (this is consistent!).

If you use Ferdium without an account, there is currently no easy method to do this other than copy-paste (or rclone) the config and recipes folders inside %APPDATA%/Ferdium if you're on Windows. With the tool that I'm currently building, this could be possible in an automated way - but I still miss some implementation to push it as a PR to the main repo.

[trymeouteh]

If you use Ferdium without an account, there is currently no easy method to do this other than copy-paste (or rclone) the config and recipes folders inside %APPDATA%/Ferdium if you're on Windows.

It would be nice to have a directory that you can sync with Syncthing or a cloud storage syncing app with no other configuration required.

[vraravam]

It would be nice to have a directory that you can sync with Syncthing or a cloud storage syncing app with no other configuration required.

I fail to understand why/how the current Ferdium profile folder cannot be synced completely with SyncThing and why that wouldn't solve the current ask. Please elaborate @trymeouteh

[trymeouteh]

Which folder does the user use to sync with their syncing client?

Also from this thread, you mentioned that Ferdium needs to be closed before syncing which is something to note and there should be mentioned what can happens when you do sync when Ferdium is still running.

Please ensure that Ferdium is closed/quit before syncing.

https://github.com/orgs/ferdium/discussions/1697#discussioncomment-9137054

[vraravam]

Which folder does the user use to sync with their syncing client?

Ferdium's profile folder. On macos, this is ~/Library/Application Support/Ferdium. For all OSes, you can find this esaily by opening the preference ui, clicking on "Advanced" on the top, and scrolling down to see the button to "Open Profile Folder".

Also from this thread, you mentioned that Ferdium needs to be closed before syncing which is something to note and there should be mentioned what can happens when you do sync when Ferdium is still running.

In general, any application's data can be corrupted if partial write operations are conducted. Another example could be that the application can use lock files to indicate to internal processes / threads about something that it needs to do exclusively. This is just a caution since I have not explored the internals of electron. If you want, you can try it out and report back here. Since this is uncharted territory, and this kind of syncing is not what we support, you will probably be on your own for any data loss/corruption.

[SpecialAro]

I have been experimenting with the Profile Folder for Ferdium, and indeed you will most likely face issues when trying to sync data while Ferdium is opened (inside Ferdium I sometimes face the same issue when trying to access a file that's running by Ferdium itself - but on the Electron process). So I advise you to be careful with this, and to avoid sync with Ferdium open.

Also, I'm not entirely sure how electron handles cross applications databases to store data. It most likely uses different file structures and databases, so it properly isn't fully compatible.

Honestly, the best option you have is to use Ferdium Server (or self-host it yourself), or wait for my implementation on data transfer (not sync!).