Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: candycanearter07 Newsgroups: alt.comp.os.windows-10,misc.phone.mobile.iphone,comp.mobile.android,rec.photo.digital Subject: Re: Tutorial: How to send files between Windows & iOS over the LAN using LocalSend Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2025 19:10:03 -0000 (UTC) Organization: the-candyden-of-code Lines: 85 Message-ID: References: Injection-Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2025 21:10:03 +0200 (CEST) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="cce277ed09b267ceaa072741e3832c48"; logging-data="2053214"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX18TEVeuOuSgXQp1FAeOVW12FlFAZZi232rF8VUICGcz2A==" User-Agent: slrn/1.0.3 (Linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:UcOqQEfD1BUxqgk2iDXz5RNNlz4= X-Face: b{dPmN&%4|lEo,wUO\"KLEOu5N_br(N2Yuc5/qcR5i>9-!^e\.Tw9?/m0}/~:UOM:Zf]% b+ V4R8q|QiU/R8\|G\WpC`-s?=)\fbtNc&=/a3a)r7xbRI]Vl)r<%PTriJ3pGpl_/B6!8pe\btzx `~R! r3.0#lHRE+^Gro0[cjsban'vZ#j7,?I/tHk{s=TFJ:H?~=]`O*~3ZX`qik`b:.gVIc-[$t/e ZrQsWJ >|l^I_[pbsIqwoz.WGA] wrote at 05:24 this Sunday (GMT): > Oh oh... there's another problem in iOS we didn't hit with photos. > > You hit a *new* problem when you try to access a different file type. > In this case, the file type is an audio file. > > *LocalSend can't (directly) access that audio file on the iOS device!* > > Here was what I needed to do: > A. I made an audio recording on iOS of a phone call (with permission). > B. I needed to transfer the 2-hour recording from iOS to Windows. > C. On Windows, I needed to reduce the file size to fit into WhatsApp. > D. Then I needed to transfer to Android to send over WhatsApp's dialer. > > The problem is iOS prevents something that simple from ever being easy. > > In summary, I want to transfer a specific 2-hour audio recording ("New > Recording 4") from the iOS native "Voice Memos" app to my Windows 10 > machine using only my local network & without using the Internet so that I > can shrink it to below 64MB in order to send it via Android WhatsApp. > > The key challenge is accessing the audio file which is ensconced deeply > within the sand boxed environment of the native Voice Memos app on iOS. > > Unfortunately, iOS, by design, heavily restricts direct file system access > for user applications like Voice Memos. This means that LocalSend, or any > other app, typically cannot directly browse the internal storage of another > app to pick out a specific file like the audio recording "New Recording 4". > > Here's the workaround I had to come up with to accomplish that simple task > of LocalSend being able to access the sandboxed Voice Memo audio file. > > 1. Make sure the Windows PC & iOS device are on the same local network. > 2. Open the LocalSend app on the iPad & the LocalSend program on the PC. > 3. Make sure they see each other inside of the respective LocalSend GUIs. > 4. Open the native iOS Voice Memos app on your iPad. > 5. Find the recording titled "New Recording 4" within the app. > 6. Tap on the recording to select it. > 7. Tap on the "Share" icon. > 8. In the Share Sheet tap about until you finally see "Save to Files". > 9. Tap "Save to Files". > 10. Choose a location within the "Files" app such as "On My iPad". > 11. Then press at the top right the "Save" button to save it there. > 12. Double check it worked by opening the iOS Files app to see it there. > 13. When you tap on it, you'll see it's named "New Recording 4.m4a" 69.7MB. > 14. On the iOS LocalSend left pane, tap the "Send" option. > 15. You'd think an audio file would be under "Media" but Apple doesn't. > 16. In the main pane, below "Selection," tap on "File". > 17. This should open the iOS file browser interface. > 18. Look for and tap on "On My iPad" within this file browser interface. > 19. Tap on "New Recording 4.m4a" to select it (you may need to tap twice). > 20. You will see a blue check mark inserted on the selected file. > 21. In the top right of the iOS file browser, tap the "Open" button. > 22. LocalSend transitions to a screen displaying discovered devices. > 23. Tap on the name of your Windows 10 PC in the list of recipients. > 24. The Windows LocalSend will say "iPad wants to send you a file". > 25. Tap "Accept" on the Windows LocalSend GUI to receive that file. > 26. The default will be "C:\Users\you\Downloads\New Recording 4.m4a". > 27. The Windows LocalSend GUI will say "Finished". > 28. Windows MPC-BE should play the Apple m4a file. > > Voila! I successfully transferred a file out of the restrictive iOS > filespace to Windows. I then easily copied it over USB to the Android > sdcard to send via WhatsApp but WhatsApp has a 64MB file size limit. > > So I had to lower the bitrate to shrink the file to send via WhatsApp. > C:\> ffmpeg -i input.m4a -vn -acodec aac -q:a 0.5 output_aac_q0.5.m4a > > That shrunk the 68MB 2-hour audio file down to about 40MB for WhatsApp. > > Unfortunately that didn't change the metadata, so WhatsApp found the 40MB > file but it thought it was the same name as the original 68MB file. > > So what I should have run is something like this to change metadata. > C:\> ffmpeg -i input.m4a -vn -acodec aac -q:a 0.5 -metadata title="Our Convo" -metadata filename="our_convo.m4a" output_metadata.m4a > Or use MP3Tag on Windows: > I personally export the recording/photo/whatever to files (Save to Files option), since its easier to get at those, as long as you don't mind dumping it in a random app folder. Also, I didn't know about ffmpeg -q, thanks :D -- user is generated from /dev/urandom