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Asked: 2018-05-15 19:00:18 +0800 CST

How to install and run GSconnect to have Android integration (transfer files, send SMS/text, get notification & more) in Ubuntu?

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How to install and run the Gnome extension GSconnect to connect your Android device with Ubuntu and integrate the device with Gnome Shell, Nautilus, Nemo file browser and Firefox (or Chrome) to be able to transfer files from/to phone, send SMS/text, get a notification, monitor battery, sync clipboard between phone & desktop, control volume & music playback and more?

software-installation android gnome-shell-extension

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    1. Install GSconnect on your desktop
    Open the GSconnect page on GNOME Extensions website in either the Firefox web browser (or Google Chrome).

    Note: If you have not previously enabled support for GNOME Extensions you will need to do so first. Just install the following package, which provides the necessary integration for web browsers (despite the name it works with Firefox), and then load the page above.

    sudo apt install chrome-gnome-shell

    2. Install KDE Connect on your Phone
    Next, install the KDE Connect Android app on a compatible Android phone, tablet, or Chromebook. KDE Connect for Android is available on F-Droid and from the Google Play Store:

    3. Pair them!
    With both requirements met you can go ahead and pair you devices! Make sure that the Android device you’re using and your Ubuntu Linux PC are on the same network, then.
    Open the KDE Connect app on your phone.
    Select the “Pair a new device” option.
    You should see your system’s name appear in the list of “Available devices”.
    Tap your system to send a pair request to your system.
    Note: It is important that you send a pair request from your phone to Ubuntu, not the other way around.

    Once you accept the pair request on the Ubuntu desktop your phone/tablet will appear inside the Status Menu on the Ubuntu desktop:
    enter image description here

    Not all features of Gsconnect are available at first. You will need to dive in and configure or set-up some of the integrations you want to use manually via the ‘plugins’ page of the KDE Connect Android app and/or the ‘mobile settings’ panel of GSconnect on your desktop.

    For instance, to see your mobile device(s) in their own panel menu switch on the ‘indicator’ mode in GSconnect > Mobile Settings > Preferences.

    Here are more in-depth information and guide to install it.

    And the good news, this extension is part of Ubuntu, from 19.04 onwards. You can install GSConnect on Ubuntu 19.04 onwards straight from the Ubuntu Software app. Source: OMG Ubuntu.

    If you have problems connecting, this might be helpful: Unable to use KDE Connect or GSconnect in Ubuntu 18.04

    And if you have any other issue or feature request, open an issue on the dedicated github page.

    If you are using a firewall on ubuntu, you need to open port 1714 to 1764. If using ufw: run

    sudo ufw allow 1714:1764/udp
sudo ufw allow 1714:1764/tcp
sudo ufw reload
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  2. Can i also say, that if you are using gufw:

    In Rules > + > Preconfigured look for KDE Connect. Click it, then click Add.

    This will accomplish the same thing, with ipv6 support (disable if needed).

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  3. KDE Connect does many things well. Unfortunately, it can't synchronise SMS efficiently for some/many phones. This is due to the variations in the Android operating system introduced by individual phone manufacturers around managing and sharing SMS data. See the developer's explanation at https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=442918

    When I looked for a solution, I found a great alternative was scrcpy, which allows you to render and interact with your android screen from your ubuntu computer. My limited experience has shown that I can interact well with all the apps on my phone (that I've tried) via this interface. I wish I'd picked up on this method for sending/syncing SMS by computer before spending a long time discovering the SMS delays/difficulties with KDE Connect.

    In some cases with scrcpy, there can be an issue with unresponsive mouse clicks, but this is easily fixed (see https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy/issues/2031#issuecomment-758567488).

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