Syncthing Server Setup Sync Your Files Between All Your Devices With No Cloud
Google Drive and OneDrive keep your files on someone else's computer. Syncthing keeps them on yours. One always-on PC at home or in the office becomes your private sync hub — every device you own stays up to date, directly, with no cloud in between.
✍️ Technical Anshu🖥️ Windows / Linux⏱️ About 30 minutes to set up
🎥 The complete Syncthing server setup is shown live in the video — installation, device pairing and the first folder sync
First, one honest correction to the title of every Syncthing guide, including ours: Syncthing has no server and no cloud at all. It is a free, open-source program that runs on each of your devices and syncs folders directly between them, encrypted, peer to peer. When people say "Syncthing server", they mean one device — usually a desktop PC, a mini PC or a small home server — that stays switched on all the time and holds a copy of everything, so your laptop and phone always have a partner to sync with. This guide builds exactly that setup, in the same order as the video.
Syncthing web interface on the hub PC — http://localhost:8384
THIS DEVICE Office-PC (the always-on hub)
Status ................ Connected
Folders ............... 3 shared
REMOTE DEVICES
Laptop ................ Connected (syncs at home and outside)
Android Phone ......... Connected (camera photos, send only)
FOLDERS
Office Files .......... Up to Date Send & Receive
Phone Photos .......... Up to Date Receive Only on this PC
No account. No cloud storage. Devices talk to each other directly.
Illustrative panel — the real interface shows your own device names and folder names
1
Understand the Model Before You Install Anything
Three ideas explain everything Syncthing does, and every setting later in this guide is one of these three:
Every device is equal. There is no master PC. If two devices are online, they exchange whatever the other is missing. The "server" in our setup is simply the device that is almost never off.
Device IDs are the security. Each install generates a unique Device ID, which is really a cryptographic certificate fingerprint. Two devices sync only after both sides have accepted each other's ID. Nobody can join your sync by guessing a password, because there is no password to guess.
Folders have types. Each folder on each device is Send & Receive, Send Only, or Receive Only. This one setting is what turns a simple sync tool into an office backup system, as the folder-types guide on this site explains.
Transfers are encrypted end to end with TLS. Files move over your LAN when devices are together — fast, and nothing touches the internet — and over the internet when they are apart.
2
Install Syncthing on the Hub First
Pick the hub honestly: it should be a machine that stays on — an office desktop, a mini PC, an old laptop with the lid settings fixed, or a small Linux server. A laptop that travels with you is a poor hub, because every other device then waits for it to come home.
Download Syncthing only from syncthing.net or your Linux distribution's official repository. It is a popular tool and fake download sites exist.
On Windows, run the installer (or use the SyncTrayzor-style wrapper builds listed on the official site) and let it start with Windows, so the hub is syncing before you even log in properly.
On Linux, install the syncthing package and enable it as a service so it survives reboots: sudo systemctl enable --now syncthing@yourusername
Open the web interface at http://localhost:8384 and set a GUI username and password under Settings. The interface is only reachable from the machine itself by default — keep it that way.
3
Pair Your Other Devices
Install Syncthing on the laptop and phone as well. Then pair each one with the hub:
On the new device, open its interface and copy its Device ID (Actions → Show ID). The Android app shows a QR code for the same ID.
On the hub, choose Add Remote Device, paste or scan the ID, give the device a clear name like "Anshu Laptop", and save.
On the new device, accept the hub when the request appears. Both sides must accept — that double handshake is the security model working, not a bug.
Repeat for each device. A device only ever syncs with devices it has explicitly paired.
Read the ID out loud or scan the QR code rather than trusting a screenshot sent through chat. The pairing guide in this series covers the checks in detail.
4
Share Your First Folder
Now give the devices something to sync:
On the hub, choose Add Folder, set a short label and pick the folder path, for example D:\OfficeFiles on Windows or /home/anshu/OfficeFiles on Linux.
Open the folder's Sharing tab and tick the laptop and phone.
On each device, accept the folder and choose where it should live there. The paths do not need to match — only the folder's internal ID matters.
Watch the first sync complete and the folder state change to Up to Date on every device.
Start with one modest folder, confirm the behaviour, then add more. Adding ten folders and three devices in one sitting is how people lose track of what syncs where.
5
The Two Settings That Make It a System, Not a Toy
Two finishing touches separate a demo from a setup you can rely on:
File versioning on the hub. Open each folder's Versioning tab on the hub and choose Staggered or at least Trash Can. Plain sync copies deletions to every device instantly — versioning is what keeps yesterday's copy of a file you deleted or overwrote by mistake. The sync-is-not-backup guide in this series explains this fully.
Phone photos, send only. On the phone, share the camera folder as Send Only and receive it on the hub as Receive Only. Photos land on your PC automatically, deleting them on the phone never deletes the PC copy, and nothing ever flows back to fill the phone. It is the simplest private photo backup there is — no Google Photos required.
That is the whole system: an always-on hub, paired devices, typed folders, versioning on. Everything else in this series is refinement.
🔴 One honest warning before you trust it with real work: sync is not backup. If ransomware or a mistaken deletion hits one device, plain sync faithfully copies the damage everywhere within seconds. Versioning on the hub (Step 5) plus one separate, offline copy of your most important folder is what makes this setup safe. The detailed explanation is in the "Syncthing Is Not a Backup" guide in this series.
🎥 Watch the Full Syncthing Setup in the Video
Installation, device pairing, folder sharing and the first real-time sync — every step from this guide is done live on screen.
Yes. Syncthing is free and open-source software. There is no account, no subscription and no storage limit, because there is no company server storing your files — the storage is your own hard disk. The only cost is the electricity of the PC you leave on as the hub.
Do my files pass through some company's server when devices are in different places?
No file data is stored on any company server. When two devices cannot reach each other directly, Syncthing can use community relay servers to pass the traffic through — but the connection stays encrypted end to end, so a relay only ever sees scrambled data it cannot read. On the same network, devices talk directly and nothing leaves your LAN.
What happens if the hub PC is switched off?
Nothing breaks and nothing is lost. The other devices simply wait, and they can still sync with each other directly if they are paired together. When the hub comes back on, everything catches up automatically. The hub being always-on is a convenience, not a requirement.
This guide is based on the Syncthing server setup video by Technical Anshu • Stuck on any step? Ask in the video comments — that is where answers come from 🙏