• General

  • share folders between profiles?

Is there a way to share files between profiles directly?

I would prefer to share folders directly, such as allowing the Files app to see a common subfolder of Downloads (/storage/emulated/10/Download/intentionally-shared-folder.

The problem this solves is making it "seemless" to access data I intentionally want cross profile, similar to how I would with work profiles. I tried Scopes, but don't appear to be able to see cross-profile folders (whereas I can see folders created/scoped to other other apps in the SAME profile.

If not directly, what are the options? Say you're in your "banking" profile, and download a TOS you need to save. I could set up syncthing for every profile, but would prefer to avoid it; also I don't believe the pixel fs (ext4 afaict) supports deduplication - so this also waists space. Move/copy then delete would also be acceptable into the owner (or whichever profile the user chooses to use as primary)

I'm on pixel6. Thanks for all the work on Graphene, very meaningful for the community.

I've toyed with this, too. And while perhaps not ideal, my approach has been to use all 3 of the following depending on file size, whether or not it's a sensitive file, and what device(s) are involved:

  • NextCloud storage for large files
  • Created 2 Session accounts in order to create various group chats for transferring various files between Android, iOS devices, and to/from a shared iPad
  • Created Delta Chat groups (only 1 account needed) for transferring files between PC/Android devices and between user profiles on GOS device. (I personally prefer not to use Delts Chat on iOS devices, so I use Session instead with those.)

Delta Chat uses your connected email service account storage, so be sure to use the message auto delete settings to avoid duplicate files from multiple user profiles/device. For example, I delete all messages from all users except main user profile after 1 hour.

Example group chats: "Graphics", "Contracts", "Quick Notes", etc.

To clarify, I use Delta Chat for myself only. I use Session for iOS devices, shared devices, and for sharing files with another person.

So, largely speaking, it's a lot of sending messages to yourself, categorized into different group chats. 😎

another use of this functionality would be simply setting up new profiles ... for instance, trying to install Neo Store in a new profile - there is [apparently] a mismatch (treated as a downgrade??) apparently between 0.9.2 (reported by NeoStore itself) and 0.9.2 [yes] as downloaded from github; I can't just download 0.9.2 from github on the new profile, installing it gives app not installed as package conflicts with an existing package.

I presume the APK I have on my other profile came from Fdroid; sharing APK's across profiles would certainly ease basic initial setup

    Arnauld I saw that ... while i suppose that's functional, it's pretty clunky.

    And I suppose that implies that if OEM's graced us with a SD CARD SLOT we could use that, too ... :(

        5 months later

        hexagonal-lattice There is a way. In your Main profile, go to Settings > System > User. Now you can select the user account that you want to installiert apps in. There you will find an Option to simply toggel on and off which apps shoud be shared to this accounts. Only the basic App will be shared without any userdata so it wont help for the original problem.

            Shun7Seventeen The apps are shared between profiles? It's not a different app installed on the other profile (using the APK used for the main profile)?

                • [deleted]

                • Post #8
                • Edited

                poubellier Correct. The app is/ can be shared across the profiles if you enable it while creating your new profile, nevertheless, the app data is not. It means that even though you can use the same app in different profiles, the app can't and won't see the app data (settings etc.) across the profiles.

                  Shun7Seventeen I would like draw attention that this does not work when the user intentionally keeps an empty Owner profile and third-party apps are exclusively in User profiles. You may ask, why do this? I use this method because I can require a long and secure passphrase BFU and a shorter one AFU.

                    hexagonal-lattice f OEM's graced us with a SD CARD SLOT we could use that, too

                    Allowing you to retain your own data instead of selling you storage by the month, and not being able to scan your data to build a better profile of you is not in the financial interests of $Billion / $Trillion surveillance capitalist phone and device manufacturers.

                    I was actually surprised that it took them as many years as it did to drop SD cards.

                      9 days later

                      FTP server is a good way. You manually turn it on when you want to move files. Material Files app is a good one that has both a client and server.
                      Primitive FTPd is a server that does localhost only and with encryption.

                        2 months later

                        Graphite
                        Can you describe how to set up Primitiveftp or Material Files? Or can you name a ressource, where to look?

                          8 months later

                          Hey, I found a good solution to be using Syncthing in both profiles and share a common folder between them so you just put a file in the folder and when both instances are running, they will be synchronized. It's only a bit tedious to share their device id so there is ultimately one string you have to copy by hand and from there on all your the files you want will be synchronized.

                          Also this solution allows shares between specific profiles apart from your main profile without setting up multiple servers (e.g. FTP) since Syncthing is peer to peer.

                          Traffic is encrypted but I'm not sure if you can guarantee none of the traffic will be routed outside of your device. Maybe there is a way to restrict it to localhost but there is no need for me to make this sure.

                          Edit: Actually there is a great tutorial in this post
                          https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/6950-how-do-i-sharetransfer-things-across-profiles-on-graphene-os/6

                          Best
                          Linus