bluetooth file sharing

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Wed, 20 Apr 2022 21:16:23 -0700, ToddAndMargo wrote:
>Through Xfce's settings, I have attached to
>my cell phone's bluetooth.  It said I had file
>sharing.
>
>What file sharing?   Thunar shows nothing
>on my phone.

Hi,

it depends on the brand of the cell phone and the software installed on
your Xfce computer. I can't comment on bluetooth or other devises, but
iOS and iPadOS devices connected by USB. At the end of my reply are
some pointers related to Android devices and a pointer related to
Thunar and bluetooth.

Usually only access to the DCIM (Digital Camera IMages) folder is
possible. However, with special software it's possible without a
jailbreak of a cell phone and even without gvfs installed by the Xfce
computer to theoretically access everything that can be accessed
by the vendors proprietary software iTunes, but I have given up using
this software for Apple devises, for several reasons, for examples see

https://github.com/libimobiledevice/libimobiledevice/issues/828
https://github.com/libimobiledevice/libimobiledevice/issues/829
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-users/2019-August/298081.html
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-users/2019-August/298094.html .

To access Apple devices I run iTunes by a Windows guest in a virtual
machine on a Linux host.

IOW an update of your cell phones operating system might break
compatibility with the software installed on the Xfce computer. First
the proprietary device gets an update, then the reverse engineering by
upstream of the FLOSS software can start, so this software is always
behind. It might be impossible to connect to the portable device and
seemingly even data corruption on the portable device can happen.

I don't know how good this software is in 2022, as you can see my
experiences are dated back. However, access to photos and videos by the
DCIM folder shouldn't be an issue and without a risk.

Related to Android devices this might be from interest:

https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/2019-May/285189.html
https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/2019-May/285193.html

You probably don't need gvfs when using bluetooth, however, it's just
an optional dependency.

[rocketmouse at archlinux ~]$ pacman -Qi thunar | grep Optional | head -1
Optional Deps   : gvfs: trash support, mounting with udisk and remote filesystems [installed]

The Arch Wiki can be helpful for other Linux distros such as Ubuntu,
too, but is unlikely a help when using a BSD install:

"Mounting Bluetooth devices

The instructions below describe a method for using different file
managers with Blueman. The examples in this section focus on Thunar. If
you are using a different file manager, substitute thunar with the name
of the file manager you are using.

obex_thunar.sh

#!/bin/bash
[ ! -d ~/Bluetooth ] && mkdir ~/Bluetooth   
fusermount -u ~/Bluetooth
obexfs -b $1 ~/Bluetooth
thunar ~/Bluetooth

Now you will need to move the script to an appropriate location (e.g.,
/usr/local/bin). After that, mark it as executable.

The last step is to change the line in Blueman tray icon > Local
Services > Transfer > Advanced to obex_thunar.sh %d." -
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Blueman#Mounting_Bluetooth_devices

Regards,
Ralf