YadoriLink

local-first · peer-to-peer · open source

Folder sync that keeps file contents off central storage.

YadoriLink keeps folders in sync across your devices and with the people you share them with. Files travel directly between devices over an encrypted tunnel; the service only ever learns who you are and who you share with — never what’s in your files.

pre-1.0 — under active development · Rust · Linux / macOS / Windows

coordination plane accounts · device identity · share membership — never file contents — identity only identity only your laptop ~/work/design your desktop ~/work/design file contents — direct, encrypted, peer-to-peer relay only as fallback, blind to plaintext
The split is the design: contents stay between your devices; the service only knows who’s who.
01

Why YadoriLink?

Your files take the direct path

Contents move straight from one of your devices to another — no detour through someone else’s storage. A relay steps in only when a direct connection isn’t possible, and it can’t read what it forwards.

Nobody can read your files — including us

The hosted service only knows who you are and which devices share which folders. It never receives file contents, so a server breach, subpoena, or curious operator has nothing to read.

The same sync everywhere

macOS, Windows, or Linux — it’s the same engine making the same decisions, so two machines never disagree about how a conflict resolves just because they run different operating systems.

Automate anything

Everything the app does can also be scripted — link a folder from a cron job, check status in CI, drive it headless on a NAS. The GUI is for everyday; the CLI is there when you want it.

Don’t trust us — check

Every line that touches your files, your keys, and the wire protocol is open source: read it, build it, and audit it yourself.

Same tunnel, LAN or internet

Devices talk over WireGuard-protocol encrypted tunnels. Paired devices on the same network find each other by local broadcast/mDNS and sync without touching the internet; across the internet, the same tunnel simply takes a different path.

Tested against data loss

The sync engine is exercised by deterministic simulation testing — seeded chaos runs with no-silent-data-loss oracles — because losing your edit is the one unforgivable sync bug.

02

How is this different?

Peer-to-peer sync isn’t new — Syncthing and Resilio already replicate folders with no cloud storage of contents, and Dropbox already does frictionless account and share management with cloud storage. YadoriLink aims at the combination:

DropboxSyncthingYadoriLink
Easy accounts, invites, and share management
File contents never stored on a server
Open-source sync, transport, and encryption stack
03

Trade-offs, by design

no cloud copy
If every device in a share is offline, syncing waits until one comes back. There is no third place holding your files — that’s the point, and it’s also the constraint.
your bandwidth
First syncs move real bytes between your machines, so speed depends on your devices’ connections — not a datacenter’s.
04

Status

YadoriLink is pre-1.0. What works, and what’s missing:

05

Get started

1. Download and install — prebuilt from GitHub Releases (nightly):

These builds are for testing and early feedback. Windows builds are unsigned, so SmartScreen warnings are expected; macOS builds are unsigned and not notarized. Checksums (SHA256SUMS) ship alongside the artifacts.

2. Open the app and sign in — the setup wizard walks you from Google sign-in through device registration, creating or joining a share, and picking your first folder. Install and sign in on a second machine the same way, and syncing begins.

Prefer a terminal? The same setup is five commands (the installer puts yadorilink on your PATH):

$ yadorilink login
$ yadorilink device register --name "my-device"
$ yadorilink share create my-share
$ yadorilink link ~/some/folder my-share
$ yadorilink status

Prefer building from source? cargo build --workspace --release — see the README.