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Re: Tutorial: How to send files between Windows & iOS over the LAN using LocalSend

Cross-posted to 4 groups.

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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:
 <https://www.mp3tag.de/en/>

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Thread

Tutorial: How to send files between Windows & iOS over the LAN using LocalSend Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-04-07 09:19 +0000
  Re: Tutorial: How to send files between Windows & iOS over the LAN using LocalSend wasbit <wasbit@REMOVEhotmail.com> - 2025-04-07 10:43 +0100
    Re: Tutorial: How to send files between Windows & iOS over the LAN using LocalSend Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-04-07 10:29 +0000
      Re: Tutorial: How to send files between Windows & iOS over the LAN using LocalSend Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-04-07 11:20 +0000
        Re: Tutorial: How to send files between Windows & iOS over the LAN using LocalSend Graham J <nobody@nowhere.co.uk> - 2025-04-07 13:29 +0100
          Re: Tutorial: How to send files between Windows & iOS over the LAN using LocalSend Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-04-07 12:57 +0000
            Re: Tutorial: How to send files between Windows & iOS over the LAN using LocalSend Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2025-04-07 14:49 -0400
              Re: Tutorial: How to send files between Windows & iOS over the LAN using LocalSend Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-04-07 21:25 +0000
          Re: Tutorial: How to send files between Windows & iOS over the LAN using LocalSend Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> - 2025-04-07 20:18 +0000
  Re: Tutorial: How to send files between Windows & iOS over the LAN using LocalSend wasbit <wasbit@REMOVEhotmail.com> - 2025-04-08 16:46 +0100
    Re: Tutorial: How to send files between Windows & iOS over the LAN using LocalSend Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-04-08 21:24 +0000
  Re: Tutorial: How to send files between Windows & iOS over the LAN using LocalSend Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-04-13 05:24 +0000
    Re: Tutorial: How to send files between Windows & iOS over the LAN using LocalSend Alan <nuh-uh@nope.com> - 2025-04-12 23:15 -0700
      Re: Tutorial: How to send files between Windows & iOS over the LAN using LocalSend david <this@is.invalid> - 2025-04-13 01:00 -0600
        Re: Tutorial: How to send files between Windows & iOS over the LAN using LocalSend Chris <ithinkiam@gmail.com> - 2025-04-13 07:19 +0000
        Re: Tutorial: How to send files between Windows & iOS over the LAN using LocalSend Alan <nuh-uh@nope.com> - 2025-04-13 00:43 -0700
    Re: Tutorial: How to send files between Windows & iOS over the LAN using LocalSend candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> - 2025-04-14 19:10 +0000
      Re: Tutorial: How to send files between Windows & iOS over the LAN using LocalSend Marion <marion@facts.com> - 2025-04-15 17:21 +0000
        Re: Tutorial: How to send files between Windows & iOS over the LAN using LocalSend Alan <nuh-uh@nope.com> - 2025-04-15 10:34 -0700
        Re: Tutorial: How to send files between Windows & iOS over the LAN using LocalSend Alan <nuh-uh@nope.com> - 2025-04-17 16:11 -0700

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