Cypher Share
Sends files and whole folders between your computers and your phone, at the full speed of your own network.
Cypher Store is the only true source for this app. Every official build of Cypher Share comes from here. A copy from anywhere else — another site, a mirror, an APK forum — was not published by Kencypher, and nothing about what is inside it is guaranteed.
Windows may warn that the publisher is unrecognised, because the installer is not code-signed — choose More info, then Run anyway. On Linux, make the AppImage executable (chmod +x) and run it. No installation and no root needed. Android blocks installs from outside the Play Store by default — when prompted, allow installs from your browser or file manager, then open the APK.
What Cypher Share is
Cypher Share moves files and entire folder trees between Windows and Linux computers and Android phones on the same local network. Start it on two devices and they find each other by themselves: there is no account, no pairing code and no server in the middle. Pick what to send, tap the device, and the receiver decides what comes in. The data travels device to device over parallel connections and never leaves your network.
Cypher Share features
What it actually does.
Built to fill the wire
Eight parallel streams by default, small files batched into single requests, and big files first so every stream is busy from the start. The target is a gigabit network filled by one transfer.
The receiver decides
An offer opens an approval sheet listing every file and folder with its size. Tick only what you want: anything left unticked is never sent, and the sender’s totals shrink to match.
Resume, not restart
A record of every finished chunk means a cancelled transfer carries on from where it stopped when you send the same selection again, even hundreds of gigabytes in.
Hard disks handled
A spinning disk loses nearly half its speed to scattered reads. When the files or the receive folder are on one, it switches to fewer streams and long sequential reads by itself.
Stays on your network
Discovery beacons cannot cross a router, peer traffic never goes through a proxy, and every path arriving from another machine is checked before anything is written.
Optional verification
Switch it on and both machines read every file again once it lands and compare SHA-256 digests, naming any file that differs.
Cypher Share screenshots
Captured from a real device running this build. Tap any image to enlarge it.
How to use Cypher Share
From a fresh install to the thing working.
1 Install it
- Windows: run the installer. It installs to C:\Program Files\cypher-share, adds desktop and Start menu shortcuts, and offers to open port 30256 in Windows Firewall for the local network only. Leave that ticked, or other devices cannot reach this one.
- Linux: make the AppImage executable (chmod +x) and run it. Python and the app window are inside it, so nothing is installed and no root is needed. If FUSE is unavailable, run it with --appimage-extract-and-run.
- Android: open the APK and allow installs from your browser or file manager when asked.
2 Send something
- Open Cypher Share on both devices. They need to be on the same Wi-Fi or wired network, and each appears on the other within a few seconds.
- On Send, choose Files or Folders, or drag them onto the window on a computer. On Android you can also pick Photos & videos, or use Share → CYPHER-SHARE from any other app.
- Tap the device to send to, then Send. Both sides show progress, speed, time left and files to go, and either side can pause or cancel.
3 Receive
- An incoming offer opens an approval sheet. Tick what you want, change where this one transfer is saved if you like, and approve. Ticking nothing counts as a decline.
- Files land in Desktop/cypher-share on a computer and Download/cypher-share on Android. An existing file is never replaced: the new one arrives as name (1).ext.
- Settings decide who has to ask: every time (the default), trusted devices straight through, or everyone.
4 A device is not showing up
- Check both devices are on the same local network, and that port 30256 is open on each, TCP and UDP.
- On Linux the app checks firewalld and ufw itself, and shows the exact command when the port is closed.
- Some guest Wi-Fi and VPNs block broadcast. Use “Not listed? Add a device by IP address” under the device list.
- On Android, documents, APKs and whole folders need All files access. The file browser asks for it, and offers Android’s own picker instead.
Built with
Licence
Made by Kencypher. Not open source.
Cypher Share was written by Kencypher. The source is not published and is not licensed for reuse. You have permission to run it — that is the whole of it.
You may
- Run it on as many of your own machines as you like
- Use it for anything, including commercial work
- Pass an unmodified copy to a friend, free
You may not, without asking
- Sell it or charge for access
- Re-upload or mirror it anywhere
- Rebrand it or publish it as your own
- Decompile it or lift its assets
This is enforced. Re-uploading it, repackaging it, stripping the author's name off it or passing it off as your own is copyright infringement — protected without registration under the Berne Convention — and is pursued with DMCA takedowns to the host, CDN, app store and search engine, platform reports for impersonation, and legal proceedings where the infringement is commercial, repeated, or involves falsely claiming authorship.
Asking first is free, and the answer is usually yes — kencypher56@gmail.com. The only official source is this store; a copy from anywhere else is not one Kencypher published.
Good to know
- The same app on all three platforms: one Python service and one interface, running in its own window on Windows and Linux and inside the APK on Android. Transfers work in every direction between them.
- Everything uses one port, 30256: TCP for the interface, control and data, UDP for discovery.
- Tested byte for byte between Windows and Linux onto NTFS, ext4, btrfs, FAT32 and exFAT. Names are only changed where the receiving disk refuses them, and a file too large for FAT32 is refused before the transfer starts rather than failing near the end.
- A transfer can never be faster than the slower of the two disks. With SSDs at both ends of a gigabit network, the network is the limit.
- The interface answers only the device it runs on. Other machines can offer you files; they can never browse yours.