Taildrop

Pick a device on your tailnet and send a file (or folder — automatically archived to .tar.gz) straight from a file manager's right-click menu. Files travel over your existing Tailscale connection; nothing leaves your tailnet.

tailscale file cp only accepts files, so directories are packed to <name>.tar.gz in a private temp directory at send time and cleaned up afterwards.

Plugin

Field	Value
ID	carlocamacho/taildrop
Entries	panel: send; service: service

Open the send dialog from anywhere with:

noctalia msg panel-toggle carlocamacho/taildrop:send

This plugin is not a Tailscale frontend. Install a Tailscale plugin separately if you want the VPN manager / peers / exit-node UI.

Requirements

• tailscale on PATH, with the local daemon running.
• tar and mktemp on PATH — used only when sending a folder. Both are present on standard Linux/macOS installs.
• The local user must be a Tailscale daemon operator (one-time): sudo tailscale set --operator=$USER.
• A file manager (HyprFM, Nautilus, Dolphin, Thunar, …) plus the bridge helper, or call the IPC command directly in a terminal.

Usage

Right-click a file (or folder) in your file manager → Send via Taildrop…. The send dialog lists your selection and the eligible destinations (online first). Pick a device, then confirm.

A successful send closes the dialog automatically after a couple of seconds; a failed one stays open so you can read the error and hit Retry (re-sends to the same device) or Done.

Bridge helper

The plugin is driven by bin/noctalia-taildrop, a small Python script the file manager calls with the selected paths. Install it somewhere on your PATH:

install -m 755 bin/noctalia-taildrop ~/.local/bin/noctalia-taildrop

File managers run it with the right placeholder — working samples for HyprFM (GNU-style config), Nautilus, Dolphin, and Thunar are under integration/. The plugin coalesces concurrent per-file invocations into a single dialog, and managers that pass all selected paths at once become one request.

Settings

Setting	Type	Default	Description
tailscale_bin	string	tailscale	Command name or absolute path to the tailscale CLI, if it isn't on PATH.

IPC

The bridge helper sends a request, then surfaces the dialog:

noctalia msg plugin carlocamacho/taildrop:service all taildrop_send '<json>'
noctalia msg panel-open carlocamacho/taildrop:send

The request JSON: { "v": 1, "requestId": "<uuid>", "paths": ["/abs/path"], "origin": "file_manager" }.

paths may contain files or directories (1..32 entries, each absolute, ≤ 4096 bytes). A matching, in-progress job is coalesced rather than re-opened.

Notes

• Trusted, unsandboxed plugin. It runs as the local user and can read/write files and spawn processes. Review the code before installing.
• License: MIT. The Tailscale mark in the dialog is the Simple Icons glyph (CC0), shown as a brand cue — this project is not affiliated with or endorsed by Tailscale or Noctalia.
• Spawns processes: tailscale file cp, tailscale file cp --targets, and (for folders) tar + mktemp.
• Filesystem: writes a private temp dir (mktemp -d, mode 0700) when archiving folders, then removes it after the send. No config or credentials are written.
• Network: only through the Tailscale CLI/daemon; imports no separate HTTP client; a destination is never added to the allowed set.
• Files-only semantics: directories are archived to .tar.gz; large folders use temporary disk and CPU while compressing.
• Receiving files (tailscale file get) is out of scope.