There's official support for Windows. No support for macOS yet, but there is a working implementation for it. I had no idea I'd be able to use KDE Connect with those operating systems.
implements a secure communication protocol over the network, and allows any developer to create plugins on top of it.
Has a component that you install on your desktop.
Has a KDE Connect client app you run on your phone.
Looking further it is only for the local network (with ways to extend it e.g. VPNs).
it also talks about using a VPN and what ports to open in a firewall.
I don't know how it handles the harder part, the "device on internet" talks to "device in my house"
most phones and apps use this "harder part" to interpose their corporate server for more than TURN/STUN and continue to "collect all the data" or "insert a subscription"
> the "device on internet" talks to "device in my house"
It doesn't handle it well other than with bluetooth or awkward port forwarding and manual entering of IPs.
I don't see it as a problem though, I don't think I have needed a single time over my many years of use to share my clipboard with, or control the media player or mouse and keyboard, of a device that was not in the same room or on the same network as me.
> Has a component that you install on your desktop.
This is only if you use Windows (or MacOS, as there's also a KDE Connect compatible Mac app out there somewhere IIRC). If you're on KDE Desktop Linux, you're already good-to-go, as it's a pre-installed component of a typical KDE environment. :)
> enables all your devices to communicate with each other
I've tried using KDE connect on two desktops (my laptop running Fedora KDE and my desktop running Nobara, also Fedora KDE) and this statement appears false. It was extremely buggy connecting them, and when they did "see" each other, none of the functionality I expected worked. Wanted to use the shared clipboard feature but it didn't work, nor did anything else.
This was early this year, maybe it's gotten better since?
KDE Connect is really for mobile (Android) devices and a computer, not computer to computer, IME
It works fine for me, and has been for at least 2 years, between any subset of 2 laptops (KDE, WiFi), one desktop (KDE, LAN), and two Androids (WiFi). They're all on the same subnet though.
Also tried KDE connect a few years back, but didn't like the idea of giving a buggy phone access to shoulder-surf root accounts. Transferring stuff out of a VM with a local samba instance also works, but samba should also be containerized.
This is a killer app. There have been times when I asked someone "why can't you just send me a screenshot on signal" or "Oh, can't you copy the URL to your desktop?"... only to realize that the poor fellow didn't have KDE connect (yet).
It's not perfect, but it does things I haven't found anywhere else, makes your phone and laptop and pc.
It might help that I'm actually running KDE everywhere, of course.
Silly use case but I watch TV on my laptop in bed and the cat likes to watch with me. I use some ancient X11 app to freeze the keyboard and mouse and then control vlc, etc. from KDE-connect. That way when my cat attacks Jedis he doesn't reboot my laptop.
I've always run GNOME and KDE Connect port called gsconnect [1] works very well. I run it on several Ubuntus and on Debian 11. I run the KDE Connect app on my Android devices. That plus syncthing are exceptionally good tools to link all my devices together.
when it works it's amazing. but very often both my phone and laptop are connected to the same WiFi, yet kde connect can't see them. I can't figure out how to diagnose and solve that when it happens
Same, I haven't used it in years because it was so disappointing when it would randomly stop working.
In the last year I have even given up on KDE in favor of Cinnamon on Mint.I loved KDE but there would always be some issue coming up. LTS Mint with Cinnamon has been rock solid.
Very typical for my KDE experience. Things break and it's impossible to figure out what's gone wrong b/c there is no additional information/logs/diagnostics exposed to the user. Everything to do with Networking and Bluetooth is plagued by this (though to be fair things break a lot less than ~5 years ago)
It should work on any network where mDNS works and where TCP connections can be established. There's not much going on that's more complicated than that when it comes to device discovery.
Many VPN configurations break mDNS and other broadcasts (i.e. Chromecast, file shares, that kind of thing), though. A lot of "how to get started with WireGuard/OpenVPN/etc." guides stop the moment HTTP(S) connections work, but there's more to a functional network than that.
I found that I could get KDE Connect working on my buggy VPN profile by manually specifying remote IP addresses for devices on the other end of the VPN in the settings.
Speculating here based solely on general networking knowledge. You may have "AP Isolation" enabled and/or multicast blocking on your network may be causing problems.
If I was working on KDE Connect I would add a microphone and speaker based pairing system using OFDM modulation lifted from Rattlegram. Each device would share all IP addresses associated with themselves using sound to broadcast the information.
Agreed. I've read a lot of apologetics for KDE Connect but there's definitely something wrong with discovery. Often it will fail to discover other devices unless I click "refresh" in both devices. I've gone as far as writing a script to force-refresh at 1 minute intervals. Sometimes it can't be persuaded to work at all. Blame my network maybe, but LocalSend works every time.
I used to recommend KDE-Connect left and right but stopped doing so because it went from rock solid and dependable to a complete disaster in a couple of years.
Linux, Android, iOS, macOS all worked in harmony. Now not even two Android phones using the same software version can see each other, file transfers keep failing after a brief while. And all with the same devices that worked before, across various networks.
Not to say anything about connectivity between Linux and Android or iOS.
Often desktop client just cannot connect to mobile.
At first I noticed that this happens when desktop client starts to output in logs these (reported [1]):
kdeconnect.core: Too many remembered identities, ignoring "<id of KDE Connect on my android device>" received via UDP
Restarting desktop client helped, so I wrote watcher that monitors logs for such lines and restarts kdeconnect. But it turned out to be insufficient. Now I have this script running in background to restart kdeconnectd whenever connection is missing, and finally can use KDE Connect reliably:
#!/bin/dash -x
while sleep 1m; do
nmcli connection show --active | grep wifi || continue
kdeconnect-cli -l | grep reachable && continue
# notify-send 'No reachable devices via kdeconnect. Restarting'
systemctl --no-pager --user status app-org.kde.kdeconnect.daemon@autostart.service
systemctl --no-pager --user stop app-org.kde.kdeconnect.daemon@autostart.service
killall kdeconnectd
systemctl --no-pager --user start app-org.kde.kdeconnect.daemon@autostart.service
done
I remember getting excited about KDE Connect but then being completely disappointed that it basically non-functional on iOS...
As I remember it (tried it last year I think), the application needs to be in the foreground in order to do anything at all, because of Apple's (purposeful) limitations of doing things in the background.
So if you were hoping to be able to install this and sync stuff without effort and having to leave the app open all the time, Apple seems to be vehemently against anything like that, probably because they have their own solutions for this...
Edit: The GitHub repository actually goes through the Apple-induced problem:
> iOS is very much designed around foreground interactions. Therefore, background “daemon-style” applications don’t really exist under conventional means, so the behavior where KDE Connect iOS is unresponsive in the background is more or less intended. There are technically some special categories and "hacky" methods to try to get it to run in the background, but in general, there is no intended/by-design method of keeping a "daemon-style" app running forever in the background. For more information, see this post on the Apple Dev Forums
At least in my use case (as link between Android devices and both Linux/Win PCs) KDE Connect is a real killer app. It enabled seamless integration and saved me lots of hassle and time. It really should get more exposure.
I see reports that it doesn't work. These are mostly for distros where Plasma is either rather old or taking a backseat after other environment (usually Gnome). I'm having great results with the latest Plasma 6 on Slackware-current and also in a standard Windows 11 environment.
The stable distribution might be a little dated, but the -current development branch is really solid. In my very subjective impression, it is more stable than many distros' stable releases. If you're not afraid of doing some hand-tuning and configuring things the old ways, you should reeally try it, especially with community packages such as Plasma 6, Chromium and LibreOffice (the latest release).
It is doing well, I run both current and 15, rock solid, stable both in use and features. It has never given me anything to complain about, OS stays out of your way and even running current I never have to think about my system or worry about what is going to happen when I update. It all just works and sticks to the slackware way.
Slackware-current is pretty current. And sbopkg has quite a lot of packages. I run it on my homeserver (and has been for the last..10-15? years or so). Since everything that I host uses docker its easy as pie to keep it running.
ZFS via ZoL etc.
As a daily driver i use PopOs! which is very nice since the've packaged nvidiadrivers etc. and I mainly use it to play games.
I had a use case that isn't the primary function of KDE Connect, but where KDE Connect worked well: file sharing from a Mac to an Android phone. I had no idea apps like KDE Connect existed and now I'm hooked.
That said, for my specific use case, Blip is a FAR superior option, and much lighter weight.
I has been using KDE connect for years, including Plasma 5 before I updated to Debian 13 .
The only two issue that I found, it's that not works on the wifi network of my work office. Something there must be blocking it. And that sometimes gets confused when you have multiple videos open on the browser and shows the wrong video on the multimedia controls.
The branding does a major disservice to this application - it works like a charm on my windows and i3wm setups, having no trouble sharing a clipboard and files. There are very few features if any that only work on KDE.
Sometimes on windows it needs a click of the refresh button to get going after connecting to a network. The discovery is wonky on some platforms.
Used to use this all the time, but about six months ago an update broke the ability for two computers I have to interact. Instead the daemon crashes repeatedly until I nuke it.
KDE Connects works amazingly for me. I get, once in a bluee moon, the random "Can't see the other device" bug. I have solved it with the basic dis/connect to the wifi both on my phone and computer. Also, check your Firewall on your computer. Some distros will not "Auto add" KDE Connect to the exception list of your Firewall. Some routers also put LAN and WLAN devices on different VLANS.
KDE Connect is great, but it sometimes doesn't work well enough on Apple Devices. I've been using LocalSend with better success when sharing to Android or Windows. But for Android to Linux/Windows and Vice versa, it's pretty much perfect.
I love KDE connect. After install I turn off things I don't want, but I have options. Works better than any similar app. Connects essentially and system. I pair it with tail scale or zero-tier depending on needs. Multiboot, all major os's mobile. PC, Mac all have ports. It's under rated
I always appreciate posts like this even though it’s clear a lot of people already know about KDE connect. I only took the plunge into a Linux daily driver for my machine a couple of months ago, so I’m still learning a lot. Just tested it and this is really useful! I depend a lot on LocalSend which is fine but this is so far looking like a better option overall.
Gets a little funky talking to my iPhone but I’m surprised how easily things like the remote control work right out the box
I also quite like Localsend to quickly share files on the same network. Used to send photos/files to myself on Whatsapp/Telegram before but after discovering Localsend, stopped!
It blew my mind when I discovered it, and I use it regularly since. I dual-boot, and it's installed on both my Linux and Windows systems. I mostly use the shared clipboard functionality (especially great to "send" complex messages and passwords from PC to phone), and send files from the phone to the PC.
I was exasperated when I found out that I can't send files from my Android to my MacBook via Bluetooth. This is a standard protocol. Also (of course, how could I supect otherwise) the file transfer does not work too. These all work flawlessly under Linux / Gnome + KDE.
For file transfer I used LocalSend, but it was still annoying.
100 comments
[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 120 ms ] thread> To achieve this, KDE Connect:
Looking further it is only for the local network (with ways to extend it e.g. VPNs).I don't know how it handles the harder part, the "device on internet" talks to "device in my house"
most phones and apps use this "harder part" to interpose their corporate server for more than TURN/STUN and continue to "collect all the data" or "insert a subscription"
It doesn't handle it well other than with bluetooth or awkward port forwarding and manual entering of IPs.
I don't see it as a problem though, I don't think I have needed a single time over my many years of use to share my clipboard with, or control the media player or mouse and keyboard, of a device that was not in the same room or on the same network as me.
This is only if you use Windows (or MacOS, as there's also a KDE Connect compatible Mac app out there somewhere IIRC). If you're on KDE Desktop Linux, you're already good-to-go, as it's a pre-installed component of a typical KDE environment. :)
I've tried using KDE connect on two desktops (my laptop running Fedora KDE and my desktop running Nobara, also Fedora KDE) and this statement appears false. It was extremely buggy connecting them, and when they did "see" each other, none of the functionality I expected worked. Wanted to use the shared clipboard feature but it didn't work, nor did anything else.
This was early this year, maybe it's gotten better since?
KDE Connect is really for mobile (Android) devices and a computer, not computer to computer, IME
Android: "Transfer Files To Computer, PC" ( Michal Bukáček includes GPL git URI, YMMV as we still need to audit it for traffic)
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=cz.bukacek.fil...
iPhone: PhotoSync is free to transfer movies and low-resolution images
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/photosync-transfer-photos/id41...
MacOS:
https://github.com/macfuse/macfuse/releases
Windows 11: sshfs is slow, but allows user account constrained access to remote shares
winget install -h -e --id "WinFsp.WinFsp"
winget install -h -e --id "SSHFS-Win.SSHFS-Win"
https://github.com/winfsp/sshfs-win
Windows 11 system tray sshfs link manager:
https://github.com/evsar3/sshfs-win-manager
Windows 11: Local OpenSSH service setup
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administrat...
If your home router is dynamic DNS only, the ISP will usually still support ports >1000:
https://www.noip.com/
Or DIY with your own DNS solution with cloudflare:
https://linuxconfig.org/automate-dynamic-ip-updates-for-your...
Also tried KDE connect a few years back, but didn't like the idea of giving a buggy phone access to shoulder-surf root accounts. Transferring stuff out of a VM with a local samba instance also works, but samba should also be containerized.
Best regards, =3
It's not perfect, but it does things I haven't found anywhere else, makes your phone and laptop and pc.
It might help that I'm actually running KDE everywhere, of course.
Not to be confused with Qt Everywhere
I'm seriously interested, since I read it's a killer feature but I cannot really imagine how it would help me.
[1] https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1319/gsconnect/
In the last year I have even given up on KDE in favor of Cinnamon on Mint.I loved KDE but there would always be some issue coming up. LTS Mint with Cinnamon has been rock solid.
Many VPN configurations break mDNS and other broadcasts (i.e. Chromecast, file shares, that kind of thing), though. A lot of "how to get started with WireGuard/OpenVPN/etc." guides stop the moment HTTP(S) connections work, but there's more to a functional network than that.
I found that I could get KDE Connect working on my buggy VPN profile by manually specifying remote IP addresses for devices on the other end of the VPN in the settings.
The computer doesn't even change addresses, there is no need for mDNS or anything fancy, setting up devices manually once would be just fine.
If I was working on KDE Connect I would add a microphone and speaker based pairing system using OFDM modulation lifted from Rattlegram. Each device would share all IP addresses associated with themselves using sound to broadcast the information.
I've rarely had any connection issues with Google Pixel (7 currently) and Debian with Plasma 5 or 6 on x86 / 64 platforms.
Linux, Android, iOS, macOS all worked in harmony. Now not even two Android phones using the same software version can see each other, file transfers keep failing after a brief while. And all with the same devices that worked before, across various networks.
Not to say anything about connectivity between Linux and Android or iOS.
Often desktop client just cannot connect to mobile. At first I noticed that this happens when desktop client starts to output in logs these (reported [1]):
Restarting desktop client helped, so I wrote watcher that monitors logs for such lines and restarts kdeconnect. But it turned out to be insufficient. Now I have this script running in background to restart kdeconnectd whenever connection is missing, and finally can use KDE Connect reliably: [1] https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=506563To the point that I'd say that Wi-Fi drivers are the most offender in printer discovery problems, which also rely on mDNS.
Another issue that many mDNS applications, including KDE Connect, don't account on multi-interface setups and send respond to mDNS request using incorrect network interface: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=507972 / https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=507954
As I remember it (tried it last year I think), the application needs to be in the foreground in order to do anything at all, because of Apple's (purposeful) limitations of doing things in the background.
So if you were hoping to be able to install this and sync stuff without effort and having to leave the app open all the time, Apple seems to be vehemently against anything like that, probably because they have their own solutions for this...
Edit: The GitHub repository actually goes through the Apple-induced problem:
> iOS is very much designed around foreground interactions. Therefore, background “daemon-style” applications don’t really exist under conventional means, so the behavior where KDE Connect iOS is unresponsive in the background is more or less intended. There are technically some special categories and "hacky" methods to try to get it to run in the background, but in general, there is no intended/by-design method of keeping a "daemon-style" app running forever in the background. For more information, see this post on the Apple Dev Forums
https://github.com/KDE/kdeconnect-ios
I see reports that it doesn't work. These are mostly for distros where Plasma is either rather old or taking a backseat after other environment (usually Gnome). I'm having great results with the latest Plasma 6 on Slackware-current and also in a standard Windows 11 environment.
ZFS via ZoL etc.
As a daily driver i use PopOs! which is very nice since the've packaged nvidiadrivers etc. and I mainly use it to play games.
Maybe they need self-hostable coordination server so that devices can connect to each other through it.
For now it's still 'send to telegram saved messages' for me.
The Android app let me add a peer by IP address. Once I opened traffic on the right port, it crossed a network boundary just fine.
My case was an adjacent network, but I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work across more hops.
That said, for my specific use case, Blip is a FAR superior option, and much lighter weight.
The only two issue that I found, it's that not works on the wifi network of my work office. Something there must be blocking it. And that sometimes gets confused when you have multiple videos open on the browser and shows the wrong video on the multimedia controls.
Sometimes on windows it needs a click of the refresh button to get going after connecting to a network. The discovery is wonky on some platforms.
(the DE has been called Plasma for ages, and almost everything KDE works outside of it)
Thanks for sharing
Seems like it even does the universal clipboard as well, I use that all the time with Apple devices, really cool to see an OSS alternative.
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=423497
Gets a little funky talking to my iPhone but I’m surprised how easily things like the remote control work right out the box
https://localsend.org/
For file transfer I used LocalSend, but it was still annoying.