Disclaimer: some settings have more or less serious security implciations. So, if you intend to use this post as a guide please read it in full before starting using it and keep in mind it is a simplified and partial explanation: take the time to read the full documentation.

SyncThing allows one to do two kind of secure syncing:

• Local. Aka, inside your home or company network two or more computers wil be able to sync, as long as they’ve been authorized to talk to each other. No computer outside of your local network shoudl be able to sync with the machines on you local networkl (and even one that is authorized to as soon as it stops bneing on the lcoal network).
• Global, wich lets your computers able to securely sync through the Internet too, as long as they’ve been authorized to talk to each other. By default, Global is activated, but it’s dead simple to change that.

To sync my laptop and desktop I must authorize both of them in the other, in Syncthing, using each computer unique ID (a secure code provided by Syncthing). If I had three computers to sync, I would have to authorize each one on the two others.

To sync the folder ‘My Amazing Novel’ between my desktop and laptop, first I must share it in Syncthing on one computer (say, on my desktop) and than allow it in Syncthing on the other (my laptop).

I can decide the level of sharifbn I want to allow for the ‘My Amazing Novel’ folder, and this was the first thing I really consider trully confusing in syncthing:

• Send Only Folder, if I want my laptop to receive new or updated files from my desktop but not be allowed to modify, delete or change any of them.
• Receive only Folder. This one is odd (and have no idea what real usecase scenario would fit): this allows me to change files from my laptop, but changes made obn my desktop won’t be synced.

In clear, how do I allow full read and write access and sharing both way, between my desktop and laptop? How can I make sure any change I do on a machine is synced to the other? I uncheck both Send Only Folder and Receive Only Folder

What is the Monitor filesystem for changes option, then?

laptop to ba able to change files without letting it receive the changes I directly make on my desktop (no idea what use case this covers, to be honest) or full read and write to give my laptop full access and have every change synced on both machines (uncheck both previous options and optionaly check ).

Say, on my deskktop I share the ‘My Amazing Novel’ folder in order to sync it on my laptop I must:

1. Add it to my desktop SyncThing as a shared folder.
2. Get my laptop’s unique ID and it to the list of authorized ID in SyncThing on my desktop.
3. On my desktop, decide for each shared folder the level of sharing I want to allow:
4. On my laptop, add my desktop’s unique ID too.
5. Accept the sharing of ‘My Amazing Novel’ folder. A popup will open to let you give this sharing an internal name (it’s used only within SyncThing, to let you easily distinguish different foklders if you whare more than one) and select the destination apth where you want to the folder to be shared (aka the actual folder where the files will be synced, within your file explorer).

Having given full read and write access on my desktop to the shared folder, after the first sync has been done, I’m now able to modify, add, delete any files from my laptop as I woudl do on my desktop. Changes will be synced back on a shceduled basis.

searching for an alternative and realize that maybe I did not need an always on cloud storage sine what I mostly use it for is to sync my files between my laptop and desktop.