Using syncthing to sync between two or more freetube instalations

[Seeker-of-Novelty]

Hi, if you want to make it so you can play a freetube video on your desktop, stop playing, and come back to it, I believe you can do this by using syncthing.

I do not quite know how to do this cleanly though, I have a code from ChatGPT to help me, but I believe it is not going to be clean, ie. if freetube is open in both computers there will be a conflict.

Does anyone have a better idea on how to sync freetube?
'''
(?d) # Allow deletion of ignored files so empty dirs can be pruned :contentReference[oaicite:0]{index=0}
(?i) # Case‑insensitive matching (Windows) :contentReference[oaicite:1]{index=1}

// Ignore all cache and temporary data
Cache/**
DawnGraphiteCache/**

// Ignore everything else by default
**

Include only the core user‑data files:

!profiles.db # subscription & profile info :contentReference[oaicite:2]{index=2}
!settings.db # app preferences :contentReference[oaicite:3]{index=3}
!playlists.db # your playlists & saved videos :contentReference[oaicite:4]{index=4}
!history.db # watch history :contentReference[oaicite:5]{index=5}
!search-history.db # search history :contentReference[oaicite:6]{index=6}
!subscription-cache.db # cached uploads/posts from your channels :contentReference[oaicite:7]{index=7}
'''

[efb4f5ff-1298-471a-8973-3d47447115dc]

I would highly discourage trying to sync the files while FreeTube is running, as it assumes it has exclusive access and control over the files while it is running.

[Seeker-of-Novelty]

Is there a way to sync between two instalations, maybe just history.db, playlists.db, and subscription-cache.db? Or maybe we there can be a sort of "duplicate" playlist, history, and subscription that freetube looks at that is not the main one and can compare to.

For example, a share-playlist.db, that can be read so that copy any changes made to its original playlist.db.

[Seeker-of-Novelty]

Sure, so how about there is a copy of all the important .db files:
share-history.db,
share-playlist.db,
share-profiles.db,
share-setting.db,
share-search-history.db,
and share-subscription-cache.db

every time freetube does any action, for example, I watch a video, it adds that video to the history.db, but adds a copy of that history to share-history.db.

Once freetube closes and opens again, during the opening sequence, it checks for any differences between its history.db and share-history.db, if it finds any, it will copy any videos watched in the share-history.db to history.db.

After that opening sequence, it will then not look at shared.db's again, which will allow syncing services like syncthing to edit them without causing any problems with FreeTube.

This should fix the problem with freetube assuming it has exclusive access and control over the files, as it will only read the share.db's during startup, then will only write to it during normal usage.

[absidue]

That wouldn't solve the problem it just moves it into different files, as you are saying you want FreeTube and syncthing to write to the same files which is the exact reason we do not recommend messing with the files while FreeTube is running. Just close FreeTube on one computer when you are done and then run syncthing afterwards, much better than overengineering something that has the exact same problem.

[Seeker-of-Novelty]

I would like to clarify a bit more on my idea, it is not that Syncthing and FreeTube both write to the same file at the same time — I understand that would cause issues. What I’m suggesting is that FreeTube writes to its usual files (like history.db) and a second copy, like share-history.db, during normal use.

The key is that FreeTube never reads from the share-*.db files while it’s running — it just writes to them. Then, on startup, FreeTube reads from the shared files (which by then would have been synced by Syncthing from another device), checks what entries are new, and copies those into the regular files (history.db, playlist.db, etc.). After startup, it ignores the shared files again until next time it launches.

This means:

FreeTube only ever writes to the shared files.

FreeTube only reads from them on startup, when Syncthing is done syncing.

Syncthing only syncs those shared files (using .stignore to exclude the rest).

Even if both devices are on at the same time, there are no conflicts because each instance is just appending to its local shared files.

As long as FreeTube writes cleanly (like adding new entries instead of editing old ones), Syncthing should be able to sync the shared files safely in the background. And if FreeTube can handle merging new rows while skipping duplicates on startup, this avoids any mid-use file conflicts.

It’s like giving Syncthing a dedicated, “safe-to-sync” copy of what’s important and FreeTube handles the merge at launch.

Is this possible, I feel like this should be possible?

[absidue]

I know what you said but the fact that FreeTube and syncthing will both be writing to the same file at the same time is the problem, it doesn't matter whether it's the normal databases or share ones. You are welcome to implement such questionable things in your own personal custom builds, but we won't be doing anything like that in the official ones and if anything does go wrong with your databases in your custom solution you'll be on your own.

[Seeker-of-Novelty]

Okay, I understand. Thank you for your time.