New series - Good offline apps

Earlier today I enjoyed reading a post titled We Need Apocalypse-Proof Software by Alireza Alavi. It got me thinking more about my experience with software when offline. I want to start a series that will highlight applications I think are doing it well.

Before I get into it, I want to mention a few caveats. First, there are obvious picks. Like, yes, Syncthing will work LAN only. Or, using LibreOffice or most other text editors to edit various documents. I’d like to dig deeper than this.

I want to choose items that gives a good offline experience, both desktop and mobile apps. Plus, I want to highlight things you can run that help you be offline and make it available on your LAN. This means you can try to live normally with a local network, without having to connect to the global internet. Last are ways tools to make being offline better.

Second caveat is retro computing. There are tons of folks out there that can speak to using retro devices that excel at being offline. After a recommendation in the latest Linkdump from Andreas I read Unlocking a better future with old computers. This post made me think deeper about configuring computers to be offline only and the value of retro computing beyond nostalgia. All that being said, there are better folks out there to follow who can speak better about retro computing. That is not my wheelhouse. However, retro computing and retro gaming is totally worth exploring for living offline.

Yet, I don’t want to confuse anyone on my stance. This is not an ode to “digital detoxing” or dumbphones or “touching grass”. I’m not advocating for an offline lifestyle. I get it, some folks become overwhelmed by all the bad news that comes out of our devices. This is an entirely different topic than what I’m talking about. I’m talking about software being available when offline, not going offline.

Brief examples of why this is important

As an American I don’t experience internet shutdowns as a weapon from the ruling class. Yet, I do live and work frequently either offline or in areas with poor connectivity. My income level leaves me constantly on the verge deciding to turn off my home internet in difficult financial times. It is also no secret if you follow me that I’m also a prepper. Everything I use should also be available offline, indefinitely. However, this is easier said than done.

Here’s an example. I self-host Vaultwarden and then use Bitwarden apps to connect to it. Yes, this combination can work offline. However, the offline portion is half-baked. I work in a lot of remote locations with terrible cellular signal. In these scenarios, I want Bitwarden to function as if it is offline when it can’t reach the server. Instead, it simply won’t function. Now if you turn on airplane mode, suddenly my vault will open. The problem is that if mobile data is turned on, it will try and then fail rather than timing out and falling back to offline. Another example is attachments. When offline you can’t open any of the attachments. It will show there are attachments, but you can only download them. So in my case, when working with a poor cellular connection and I want to pull up something important, like a scan my contractors license, I can’t.

Another example of “fake offline” is the Nextcloud app for Android. You can select folders to sync to your device. However, it only does that folder, not any of the sub-folders. I keep my notes nested, organized by topic/tags in folders. If I sync the parent notes folder, it won’t sync any of the sub-folders or their contents. I thought I had everything saved offline. But if I really wanted that, I would have to go through the app and manually tell it to sync more than a hundred folders.

Simply stated: Installing an application should make it function completely offline. If not, there is no reason to have the dedicated app when a browser tab will accomplish the same thing.

This week’s app pick

My first pick isn’t that exciting, nor is it open source.

Gasp!

Not everything here will be open source. Not all of them will be free.

My first pick is FolderSync for Android because it fixed my problem with Nextcloud sync. Using FolderSync I can setup multiple sync profiles for the directories from my Nextcloud instance to sync to my device. In my case I need my notes and business files.

FolderSync supports connecting numerous cloud storage locations, plus SFTP, WebDAV, SMB, and even S3 compatible object storage.

To solve my issue with Nextcloud sync I could have gone with something like Syncthing. However, I didn’t want to have yet another syncing tool on my server, desktop, or other locations just to get the files that are already in my Nextcloud onto my phone on a consistent, two-way sync schedule.

What I like about FolderSync is it does one job: It syncs files. When my phone has a connection back to my Nextcloud server, it will sync the files locally. If it doesn’t have a connection, it will try again every two hours until it finally does. This means I can take notes all day long on a jobsite completely offline and, once I get home, all those files will get to my Nextcloud instance.

Up next

Alright, don’t hold me to the weekly schedule. I’m going to try, but I’m also going into my busy work season.

I’d also love to hear some of your picks. You can email, message, or toot me. Or, my favorite option, write a post on your blog about your favorite offline tools or how you live offline. Send me the link when you do!

I have already written some posts for working offline, such as Archiving Docker containers, Flatpaks, and an apt mirror for offline installs.

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