Share folders

A phone can see only the folders you share on the computer, and nothing else on it. You share a folder at the computer, never from the phone. This keeps a thief with an unlocked phone from adding C:\ to the list.

You can share a folder in the Tealhand app on the computer, or with tealhand-host in a terminal.

In the Tealhand app

Open Tealhand on the computer, then Settings → Shared folders → Share a folder. Tealhand opens the folder dialog and you choose a folder. Then you pick the name the phone shows and whether the folder is Read only, and choose Next. A confirmation card follows, and Windows Hello asks you to confirm. If the folder overlaps one you already share, Tealhand says which one. Each folder in the list shows Read only or Default for downloads under its name, and has:

Set as default: makes this the computer’s default for downloads, which phones offer after the folder they used last. It shows on a folder that is not read only and not the default already.
Stop sharing: the phone can no longer open it. Nothing in it is deleted.

On a system without Windows Hello (Linux today) the app refuses changes that need it. Use tealhand-host there.

With tealhand-host

Stop Tealhand Host first. The commands change the Host’s own files, so they refuse to run while a Host uses the data folder.

tealhand-host share list
tealhand-host share add <path> [--name <name>] [--read-only] [--downloads]
tealhand-host share remove <id>
tealhand-host share default <id>|none

For example:

tealhand-host share add ~/Projects --name Projects
tealhand-host share add ~/Videos --read-only
tealhand-host share add ~/Downloads --downloads
tealhand-host share list

list prints one folder per line: its number, its name, its path and any tags in brackets.

1  Projects  /home/sam/Projects
2  Videos  /home/sam/Videos (read-only)
3  Downloads  /home/sam/Downloads (default for downloads)

When it works, add says “Shared it as folder 1. Connected phones see it the next time they open Files.” remove says “Stopped sharing folder 1. Phones can no longer open it.” Removing a share never deletes any file. share default 1 says “Folder 1 is the default for downloads now.” and share default none clears it.

Option	What it does
`--name <name>`	The name the phone shows, 1 to 64 characters. Without it, the folder’s own name
`--read-only`	The phone can browse and read but never change anything in this folder
`--downloads`	Makes this the default for downloads (below). It can’t be read-only, and only one folder can be the default. `share default <id>` sets it later, and `share default none` clears it

Add --data-dir <folder> to use a different Host data folder. Run tealhand-host share list to see the numbers that remove and default take. The list is kept in shares.bin in the data folder, and numbers are never reused.

What can’t be shared

Tealhand refuses to share a whole drive, a system folder, Tealhand’s own data folder, a link (a symbolic link or a junction), or a folder inside or around one that is already shared. The error says so and tells you to share a folder of your own. At most 64 folders can be shared. A shared folder that is later deleted or replaced by a link stays in the list as “missing: share it again” and gives the phone nothing until you fix it.

What the phone can do with them

All of this goes through the action list, so each change shows a card first. Reading needs no card.

On the phone	What happens	Card and fingerprint
Browse the shared folders and open a folder	Lists the folder in pages. Entries Tealhand can’t address safely are shown, but have no actions	No card
Open or play a file	Reads it from the computer in pieces, so a video can start playing and seek without copying the file	No card
Send a file or a photo to the computer (from Files, or the Android share sheet)	Uploads into a shared folder that is not read-only	A card, one for the whole batch. A fingerprint when it would replace a file
New folder	Makes one folder inside a shared folder	A card
Rename	Renames a file or folder in the same folder	A card. A fingerprint when it would replace a file
Delete	Moves it to the Recycle Bin or the trash. If that isn’t possible nothing is deleted	A card and a fingerprint
Download on the computer	Shares a web link; the computer fetches it into the shared folder named on the card (below)	A card showing the link’s host and the folder

Files can’t be moved between folders in M1, and nothing can be deleted past the trash. When the computer is out of space the phone is told, and nothing is left half written.

From your other computers and AI apps

Your other computers can use the shared folders as the phone does, from the Files tab of this computer’s page in their Tealhand app: browse, download a file to that computer, upload, make a folder, rename and delete, each with a card (Control your other computers from a computer). Every change they make is told to your phone. An AI app on another computer can only list and read them, and copy a file to its own computer (Use Tealhand from your AI app).

How Files looks on the phone

In Files for a computer, the phone lists, from top to bottom:

Folders ⟨computer⟩ shares: the folders you shared. A folder that is read only has a Read only badge; the others have no badge.
Downloads, with “Links ⟨computer⟩ downloads for you”: the downloads this computer is fetching or has fetched. Downloads lives inside Files; the computer’s page has only Files.
“Share more folders on ⟨computer⟩: Tealhand → Shared folders, or tealhand-host share add <folder>.” This line is a reminder that folders are shared at the computer, never from the phone.

While remote control is off, a phone can’t browse, read or change anything in a shared folder. Switch it back on at the computer. See Remote control on and off.

Downloads

A phone can share a web link to Tealhand, or tap Paste a link on the Downloads page. The computer, not the phone, fetches it. Only http and https links work, one download runs at a time, and a file bigger than 8 GiB, or one that would leave less than 1 GiB free, is refused. The computer never opens or runs what it downloads. On Windows the file is marked as coming from the internet. The rules that keep this from reaching your own network are in Files.

The phone picks the folder

The card for each download says Save to and names a folder, with Change beside it. The phone can pick any shared folder that is not read only. It offers, in this order:

The folder it used last for that computer.
The computer’s default for downloads.
A folder named Downloads.
The first folder that is not read only.

To set the default, use Set as default in the Tealhand app (Settings → Shared folders), tealhand-host share add <path> --downloads, or tealhand-host share default <id>. tealhand-host share default none clears it. With no default, the phone still offers the other choices. The default is not the only place a download can go: it is only one of the folders the phone offers.

A computer with no folder that is not read only

The phone shows “No writable folder on ⟨computer⟩”, with How to set it up and Check again. How to set it up: open Tealhand on the computer, go to Settings → Shared folders and share a folder that is not read only, or run tealhand-host share add ~/Downloads --downloads on a computer without a screen. Then tap Check again.

Links that are not files

A link that is a web page, not a file: the computer reads the page (at most 2 MiB, in memory) and the phone shows Pick the file with the file links it found, each with its own card.
A Dropbox or Google Drive share link: the phone rewrites it to the address that gives the file, before the card.

Watching and stopping downloads from the computer

tealhand-host downloads
tealhand-host downloads cancel <id>

downloads lists what phones downloaded here: the number, the file’s name, the host it came from, the folder it went into and the state. It works while Tealhand Host runs. downloads cancel stops one; a running Host picks the request up within a second.

What this does not do

It is not file sync, and it does not mirror folders. The phone reads and writes the computer’s files only while you use them. There is no link to share with other people.