OurStick
A USB stick in a link.
Put folders on a stick in the OurStick app and send its link. The
other person opens it in OurStick, picks what they want, and downloads it,
straight from your computer to theirs. Peer-to-peer, end-to-end encrypted, no
accounts, no size limits.
Early development. Download the desktop app at https://ourstick.com.
Each release's SHA-256 sums are signed with minisign, key
RWS7C6wOt/7eLZ1c4gP+CYXHWKYycOKldo6+LFUSHsA5TUwdiBot58Yh; how to check a
download: release-keys/README.md.
Status
Using the CLI
ourstick share <folder> # prints a link and a QR code, then serves
ourstick ls '<link>' # lists the files
ourstick get '<link>' [--out <folder>] # downloads them; run again to resume
ourstick get '<link>' --follow # ... and every new version as it comes
ourstick get - [--out <folder>] # the link asked for (not shown), or piped in
A link given as an argument can be read by every user of the computer (ps),
and it carries the stick's key: on a shared computer, give - and paste it
when asked, or ourstick get - < link.txt.
While share runs, changes to the folder are shared as they happen; only
files that changed are encrypted again (judged by size and modification
times; share --rescan reads every file). A later get fetches only what
changed. It never overwrites a file you changed in its folder, and keeps files
that left the stick.
The link carries the key: anyone who has it can read the stick. Data goes
directly between the two devices when possible. Without a direct path it goes
through a public relay, at up to 10 Mbps, while a direct path is still looked
for; a download never stops because of it.
share keeps its keys in the system keyring: the Secret Service (GNOME
Keyring, KWallet) on Linux, the keychain on macOS, the Credential Manager on
Windows. Where there is none (SSH sessions, servers), use
ourstick share --key-file <path> <folder> once; later runs use that file and
ask for its passphrase. Losing the keys or the passphrase ends every link
shared from that device.
Development
OurStick is written with Claude (Anthropic) as a programming partner, as the
commits say. CLAUDE.md, in Greek, holds the project's rules for
it; the decisions behind the design are in docs/decisions,
each reviewed before it was built.
Requires Rust 1.91 or newer (rust-version in Cargo.toml). The floor comes
from our dependencies, not from our own code:
iroh 1.x and iroh-blobs (networking and blob transfer) need 1.91.zbus-secret-service-keyring-store (the Linux Secret Service backend for
keeping keys) needs 1.88.ed25519-dalek 3 (stick signing keys), argon2 0.6 (key files),
rpassword 7 (reading key-file passphrases) and apple-native-keyring-store
(the macOS keychain) need 1.85.
cargo test --workspace
cargo clippy --workspace -- -D warnings
cargo run -p ourstick-cli
The desktop app (apps/app, Tauri 2 + Svelte) is part of the workspace, so the
commands above need its system libraries too. On Debian/Ubuntu:
sudo apt install libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev librsvg2-dev \
libxdo-dev libssl-dev build-essential file
On Linux the app's tray icon is a StatusNotifierItem; GNOME shows it through
the AppIndicator extension (on by default in Ubuntu).
macOS needs only the Xcode command line tools. The UI needs Node.js 22 or 24
(LTS):
cd apps/app
npm install
npm run tauri dev # the app, reloading as the UI changes
npm run tauri build # a release build, with the UI inside
npm run check # type-check the UI
A release build made with plain cargo needs the UI built first (npm run build)
and --features tauri/custom-protocol; without it the app looks for the
development server and shows an empty window.
License
Apache-2.0. See LICENSE. The licence covers the code; it gives no
right to use the name OurStick or its logo (section 6 of the licence).
OurStick is free software, provided as is, without any warranty (sections 7
and 8 of its licence). Keep your own copies of files that matter.
