Snapdrop

Snapdrop: local file sharing in your browser. Inspired by Apple's Airdrop.

Snapdrop is built with the following awesome technologies:

• Vanilla HTML5 / ES6 / CSS3
• Progressive Web App
• WebRTC
• WebSockets
• NodeJS
• Material Design

Support the Snapdrop Community

Snadprop is free. Still, we have to pay for the server. If you want to contribute, please use PayPal:

or Bitcoin:

Alternatively, you can become a Github Sponsor.

Thanks a lot for supporting free and open software!

Frequently Asked Questions

Instructions

• Video Instructions (Big thanks to TheiTeckHq)
• idownloadblog
• thenextweb
• winboard
• 免費資源網路社群

What about the connection? Is it a P2P-connection directly from device to device or is there any third-party-server?

It uses a P2P connection if WebRTC is supported by the browser. WebRTC needs a Signaling Server, but it is only used to establish a connection and is not involved in the file transfer.

What about privacy? Will files be saved on third-party-servers?

None of your files are ever sent to any server. Files are sent only between peers. Snapdrop doesn't even use a database. If you are curious have a look at the Server. Even if Snapdrop was able to view the files being transfered, WebRTC encrypts the files on transit, so the server would be unable to read them.

What about security? Are my files encrypted while being sent between the computers?

Yes. Your files are sent using WebRTC, which encrypts them on transit.

Why don't you implement feature xyz?

Snapdrop is a study in radical simplicity. The user interface is insanely simple. Features are chosen very carefully because complexity grows quadratically since every feature potentially interferes with each other feature. We focus very narrowly on a single use case: instant file transfer. We are not trying to optimize for some edge-cases. We are optimizing the user flow of the average users. Don't be sad if we decline your feature request for the sake of simplicity.

Snapdrop is awesome! How can I support it?

• Donate via PayPal to help cover the server costs
• File bugs, give feedback, submit suggestions
• Share Snapdrop on your social media.
• Fix bugs and make a pull request.
• Do security analysis and suggestions

Local Development

Install docker with docker-compose.

Clone the repository:

    git clone https://github.com/RobinLinus/snapdrop.git
    cd snapdrop
    docker-compose up -d

To restart the containers run docker-compose restart. To stop the containers run docker-compose stop.

Now point your browser to http://localhost:8080.

Testing PWA related features

PWAs require that the app is served under a correctly set up and trusted TLS endpoint.

The nginx container creates a CA certificate and a website certificate for you. To correctly set the common name of the certificate, you need to change the FQDN environment variable in docker/fqdn.env to the fully qualified domain name of your workstation.

If you want to test PWA features, you need to trust the CA of the certificate for your local deployment. For your convenience, you can download the crt file from http://<Your FQDN>:8080/ca.crt. Install that certificate to the trust store of your operating system.

• On Windows, make sure to install it to the Trusted Root Certification Authorities store.
• On MacOS, double click the installed CA certificate in Keychain Access, expand Trust, and select Always Trust for SSL.
• Firefox uses its own trust store. To install the CA, point Firefox at http://<Your FQDN>:8080/ca.crt. When prompted, select Trust this CA to identify websites and click OK.
• When using Chrome, you need to restart Chrome so it reloads the trust store (chrome://restart). Additionally, after installing a new cert, you need to clear the Storage (DevTools -> Application -> Clear storage -> Clear site data).

Please note that the certificates (CA and webserver cert) expire after a day. Also, whenever you restart the nginx docker, container new certificates are created.

The site is served on https://<Your FQDN>:443.    

Deployment Notes

The client expects the server at http(s)://your.domain/server.

When serving the node server behind a proxy, the X-Forwarded-For header has to be set by the proxy. Otherwise, all clients that are served by the proxy will be mutually visible.

By default, the server listens on port 3000.

For an nginx configuration example, see docker/nginx/default.conf.

Desktop App

Note: if you are using Google Chrome, you can easily install Snapdrop PWA on your desktop by clicking the install button in the top-right corner.

If you are not using Chrome or Edge, you can install the Snapdrop Desktop App built on top of Electron. (Thanks to Infin1tyy!).