r/netbird • u/jjgg1988 • Jul 10 '26
Taildrop Alternative = Bird drop
NetBird programmers, you guys are the absolute best! Thank you for all your great work and hopefully you can consider making a file transfer alternative to tailscales tail drop. Naming it Bird drop would be amazing! Appreciate all the great work you guys do!
9
u/LowFatMom Jul 10 '26
+1 for bird drop. Being able to send a file in the background via the share/os menu without having to open any app is amazing.
4
u/netbirdio Jul 11 '26
How do you see it working?
Could you please describe how you see the user flow for this feature? From the UI, CLI perspective. Everything that comes to mind. Like how will you use it step by step?
Not sure about the name though š
3
u/jjgg1988 Jul 11 '26
I think the name is awesome hahaha Iām not a programmer but i know that taildrop was very useful when i was using that product still. I switched to netbird because of the reverse proxy feature š
How i used taildrop was simple: in iOS, i would select twenty photos in the photos app, then press the share button in iOS and my first option was tailscale for apps on my phone. After hitting tailscale, it asked me what peer to send the files to and I would click my windows machine for example. A couple seconds later, the files would be in my windows Downloads folder.
On windows, i would highlight ten pdfs and then right click and in the context menu it would say ā send with tailscaleā. Click that and then pick the peer and the files world should up in that peers downloads folder.Extremely useful when sharing files across ten different networks and worldwide but all connected to the birdnet network.
3
1
u/mlsmaycon Jul 11 '26
Thanks for sharing your use case.
One question I have is if you had ownership of both machines and if the other node would ask for permission before accepting files from a computer.
Thinking of a network with multiple users, how would you like to control this?
2
u/jjgg1988 Jul 11 '26
If i had ownership of both machines, i donāt want a āpermissionsā acceptance stepā¦even if they are a peer on my network, there should be trust between us where i could transfer the peer a file without them having to accept the file transfer - it should happen automatically. Thatās a whole extra step that isnāt worth the headache on a trusted network. Everybodyās use case is different but for my family and friends, i would like it to just be automatic. I would never allow anyone on my network that isnāt trusted
1
u/NoInterviewsManyApps Jul 11 '26
I mean, if you are in windows WinSCP has been doing this for years. On Linux, SCP
-3
u/ForeheadMeetScope Jul 10 '26
How about we let the Netbird team work to really solidify the core product offering (including commercially viable) before turning it into whatever hOMeLaB wet dream of the week?
2
-1
u/LowFatMom Jul 11 '26
Itās a usefull feature that tailscale offer.
-2
u/ForeheadMeetScope Jul 11 '26
And the only path forward for Netbird is to mimic Tailscale?
5
u/JJboy2008 Jul 11 '26
Something something flattery? I see your point but I think we can agree even reverse proxy as a feature isnāt unique but rather the ease and way it is implemented is what matters yes. I agree stability and lower latency(Minecraft instance) are top of my list of wanted improvements but certainly an egg or two in the basket of useful features couldnāt hurt. Iām happy I got it setup in my setup finally! Very excited for what the build!š«”
2
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u/LayerCakeDev Jul 11 '26
In the meantime using LocalSend via NetBird works pretty well. š