IPFS Share

Sender view	Recipient view

Share files directly from your device's browser using IPFS — no cloud needed. Fast, free, easy file sharing for IPFS novices and veterans alike, available at https://share.ipfs.io.

Maintainers

Maintainers welcome! This repo is not currently under active development, but issues are monitored as part of overall IPFS project issue monitoring.

Table of Contents

• About IPFS Share
• For Developers
• Translations
• Contribute
• License

About IPFS Share

IPFS Share is a simple, easy-to-use tool for sharing files directly from your device without having to rely on third-party intermediaries like big corporate cloud providers. It's simple enough for anyone to use, but it's also a great under-the-hood demonstration of a common IPFS use case.

Features

• Share and receive files using IPFS without needing to install a local node
• Upload or drag-and-drop individual files or entire directories
• For multiple-file uploads, generate share/download links for individual files or a single all-in-one link (downloads as a .tar file)
• Preview files in-browser (browser-supported formats only) before sharing or downloading
• Generates a QR code for share links for easy distribution
• Supports browser-specified language or manual choice of language via menu
• 100% mobile-friendly
• Supports installation as a mobile shortcut or desktop standalone app
• Includes brief explainers on how IPFS Share works, with links to more details for the curious

How it works

IPFS Share uses ipfs-provider to connect to IPFS via multiple providers. If local IPFS node is not available (for example, if you're using IPFS Share on your phone, or due to CORS), an instance of js-ipfs is created.

The app itself is built using create-react-app, so if you're comfortable building ordinary React web apps, you'll feel right at home in this codebase. Not familiar with React or create-react-app? There are extensive docs available. Visual styling is done using Tachyons with additional IPFS flavor via ipfs-css.

For developers

It's easy to get a local copy of IPFS Share up and running, even if you don't have a local IPFS node installed.

Installation

With node@14 and npm@6.4.1 or greater installed, run:

> npm ci

Usage

To run IPFS Share in development mode:

> npm start
# You can now view ipfs-share-files in the browser.
# Local: http://localhost:3000

Using with a local IPFS node

If you have a local IPFS node, you may also want to run it simultaneously. Use IPFS Desktop or start a daemon in the terminal:

> ipfs daemon
# API server listening on /ip4/127.0.0.1/tcp/5001

If you are running a local node, you must configure your IPFS API to allow cross-origin (CORS) requests from you development server and the share.ipfs.io domain.

You can either run the cors-config.sh script:

> ./cors-config.sh

Or do it manually:

> ipfs config --json API.HTTPHeaders.Access-Control-Allow-Origin '["http://localhost:3000", "https://share.ipfs.io"]'
> ipfs config --json API.HTTPHeaders.Access-Control-Allow-Methods '["PUT", "POST"]'

To reset the config to its default state, run:

> ipfs config --json API.HTTPHeaders {}

Linting

To validate the code using StandardJS, run:

> npm run lint

This is highly recommended to avoid automated CI failures when submitting a pull request to this repo.

Building

To build IPFS Share for production to the build folder:

> npm run build

Deployment

We use CI for automatic deployments when merged to the following branches:

• Branch main is automatically deployed to dev.share.ipfs.io
• Branch production is automatically deployed to share.ipfs.io

If you just want to PR main to production for go-live, there's a handy shortcut for that here.

Note that it's always a good idea to clear one's caches when double-checking a successful deployment.

Translations

The entire IPFS project, including IPFS Share, uses Transifex to help us source and manage translations. We very much welcome your contributions! Simply go to the project page on Transifex, create an account, pick a language and start translating.

On the app side, translations are stored in public/locales, and the English version is the source of truth. Transifex automatically syncs new translations into that directory, so if you want to add translations, do so in Transifex — not this repo.

To sync translations

1. Install and set up the command-line client (tx)
2. Download new translations from Transifex with tx pull -a
   • This creates/updates the files in public/locales/* that need to be committed
   • If a new language is created, remember to
     • add it to src/i18n.js
     • run npx -q @olizilla/lol public/locales > src/lib/languages.json

To add or update English source-of-truth translation keys

1. Change only the source file (public/locales/en/translation.json)
2. Commit your changes; changes from the main branch are fetched by Transifex automatically once a day

To learn more about internationalization on the IPFS project as a whole, or contribute translations to other IPFS repos, check out ipfs/i18n.

Contribute

Contributions are more than welcome! Check out the currently open issues and start hacking on anything that sounds interesting. Issues are labeled with a variety of tags to help you find a good fit — you may wish to start with the help-wanted tag.

To contribute to IPFS in general, check out the wide variety of opportunities here.

The IPFS community believes that our mission is best served in an environment that is friendly, safe, and accepting, and free from intimidation or harassment. To that end, we ask that everyone involved in IPFS read and respect our code of conduct.

License

MIT