Comment by Ajedi32

Correct. A big part of the issue here is that Syncthing's Android app is more of a wrapper over the desktop app than an actual native Android implementation, so a lot of the code assumes the availability of certain features (like full filesystem access, and the ability to run continuously in the background[1]) that are suboptimal to have on a modern mobile OS.

Android has been pushing to restrict the usage of such features for a while. It sounds like now they finally pushed hard enough that Syncthing broke.

As a longtime Syncthing user I'm personally fine with this. I think its fair for Google to demand a certain minimum bar of polish for apps on the Play Store. I'll continue to use Syncthing on F-Droid so long as its feature set continues to make it superior to those more polished alternatives. Hopefully the absence of Syncthing on the Play Store will create an opportunity for another file syncing app to fill that void, or incentivize contributors to eventually bring Syncthing up to snuff to get back on the Play Store. (Or possibly, incentivize Google to develop tools to make it easier for low-budget apps like Syncthing to meet their quality standards.)

[1]: https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing-android/issues/1048#i...