Copyparty – Turn almost any device into a file server
84 comments
·July 28, 2025skibz
yoavm
I really didn't think I need this software but the video is so good that I'm gonna try hard to find a use case.
nkrisc
It's very impressive, particularly if you remember waking up to a failed download from the night before over dial-up.
paulryanrogers
I recall we had special apps to queue and schedule our downloads, and resume them where servers supported it. They were a dream compared to the boredom of staring at progress bars.
henry700
Anyone remember DAP, Download Accelerator Plus? The colorful bars were nice. A part of my childhood, downloading shareware Windows games through dial-up.
Datagenerator
The server that has moved countless Petabytes is glFTPd that allows FXP ( clients without bandwidth can initiate to transfer files from server to server ).
globular-toast
The trouble is those special tools also needed downloading. So I could either sacrifice an evening's, ahem, download, or just chance it yet again. I eventually got an FTP client and it was like a superpower. BitTorrent was honestly more impressive to me than AI. Ah, the good old days.
MisterTea
Most files were available via FTP which supported resume.
henry700
Not most. There was (and still is) so much locked behind HTTP on poor servers
supportengineer
FTP can't restart a PPP or SLIP connection.
squarefoot
One of those things of the past even old nostalgic greybeards like me do not miss at all.
anthk
You might like NNCP which was written precisely to support severely constrained or even cut down down networks.
jonny_eh
Could be useful when launching a Doom shareware release.
paxys
Sounds like...BitTorrent.
reactordev
Or… proper adherence to HTTP RFCs… with some added devx
01HNNWZ0MV43FF
Sound like BitTorrent needs better PR then
floam
“Race the beam”
That’s really cool. I’ve never seen that work before.
darkwater
This is the wet dream of every power-user. It has tons of features on top of the file server. And it also seems developed by a 10x (100x?) developer, I mean, just making/editing the video is a work of art and humor.
If the author is lurking here, are you doing all by yourself? Do you use any LLM/agent?
It really is impressive.
j-bos
In the vid author says they started this pre useful LLMs (2019) on their phone.
vorgol
> into a file server
This is underselling it by at least three orders of magnitude. This is astonishing tool, you have to watch the demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15_-hgsX2V0
sunshine-o
In addition to being an awesome piece of software, their self hosted demo server is the fastest web app I have seen in a long time ... and this is while trending on HN !
Amazing.
Now I am wondering, would it be technically possible to build a similar app but based on the syncthing protocol?
I really like syncthing but it would be cool to have a version where you could just easily share specific files with peers.
dmd
[starts watching video] Ok cool it's a file browser, there's a million of the---s----e
[keeps watching video] what the fuck
akk0
Copyparty is an amazing piece of software. I recommend watching the recent YouTube video for an overview[0]. The developer is a personal friend and my household is proud to own one of 20 limited edition copyparty disc releases.
visil
Absolutely amazing piece of software, the kind that makes you wish you had a use-case for that. Kudos to devs for taking security seriously, too.
By the way, the youtube video showcases this project really well.
jjkaczor
Heh... I have one... have always wanted to make a little solar-powered "library" on my front-lawn...
(You know, like the neighbourhood "take-a-book, leave-a-book" little libraries, except for... digital content... It would fly an appropriate "skull + crossbones" flag...)
alias_neo
I've wanted to do something like this, but I live within WiFi range of a school and am concerned someone would put something "harmful" on there so have never done so.
I created a PirateBox on a little GliNet router a while back with the intention of sharing public domain content but didn't do so beyond having a quick play around with it myself.
NKosmatos
And like most things nowadays, it would get filled with highly illegal content within hours of you putting it there. The good old (innocent) days are gone and the society we’re living is not mature/educated enough for such ideas.
pkulak
I don't think the idea is to put it on the global internet; just make it broadcast a wifi SSID.
jjkaczor
As others have said - it would be standalone, not connected to the internet.
Have debated making it "read-only", but then I would be culpable for the curation of content...
That and perhaps I just don't want to encourage people loitering around in front of my house for long-transfers...
OTOH - this could be useful for essentially a "dead-drop" independent standalone box for, uh... "civil disobedience" reasons... (or a free alternative to those "prepper-internet-in-a-box" devices they are currently selling...)
MostlyStable
Maybe I'm misunderstanding something, but wouldn't this work great (albeit huge overkill) for the extremely common problem of trying to get files from one device to another (especially when one of those devices is a phone)? I see tools that are supposed to do that posted to HN all the time, with the comments usually pointing out one or another problem with any given utility. This seems like it would be pretty great self hosted, open source, solution to that problem?
brewtide
If you have not tried "localsend" I would highly recommend.
mhuffman
I have been having a lot of luck with Blip[0] recently regarding phone <-> laptop file transfer. My biggest issue so far is that it does support iOS, Android, MacOS, Windows ... but not Linux.
banku_brougham
This is amazing, just amazing. I'm sure this fills important use-cases in my personal projects.
aquova
I have never heard of this before, but watching through their Youtube introduction, this might be one of the best pieces of software I've ever seen. Assuming it works as advertised, this could replace a few things I've been hosting myself.
srcreigh
Take a look at the known issues section regarding iPhones. It’s good evidence of apples non competitive behaviour regarding browser support. PWA/websites are not allowed to be good on iPhones.
monkmartinez
This is awesome. The readme is fun as heck and I just want to use the software based on that. I see nothing but complaints about nextcloud and others on r/selfhosted. I can't wait to try this out.
Fuzzwah
Thanks for the tip, I really did enjoy my scroll of the readme. This bit here really tickled me and set expectations so well:
> inverse linux philosophy -- do all the things, and do an okay job
justusthane
If you think the readme is fun, check out the demo video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15_-hgsX2V0
gknoy
You weren't kidding. I was amused by the humor in the first few minutes, but then I got to its showcase of what you can do, and am just even more blown away. They weren't kidding about doing _just about everything_ pretty well.
j-bos
From the introductory video: "There is no telemetry and their never will be. Not even an auto-updater". And yet this is one of the most feature-full projects I've ever seen. Brilliant.
The author of this tool uploaded a YouTube video demonstrating it a few days ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15_-hgsX2V0
At one point in his demo, he uploads a file but terminates the upload more or less halfway. Then he begins downloading the file - which only progresses to the point it had been uploaded, and subsequently stalls indefinitely. And, finally, he finishes uploading the file (which gracefully resumes) and the file download (which is still running) seamlessly completes.
I found that particularly impressive.