selfsync

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Self-hosted Chrome / Edge sync server. Keep your bookmarks, passwords, preferences, and other browser data in sync across devices — without sending anything to Google or Microsoft.

Caution

Do NOT expose this server to the public internet. selfsync performs no authentication — anyone who can reach the port can read and overwrite synced data, including saved passwords. Run it on trusted private networks (LAN, NAS, home lab) or behind a zero-trust tunnel (Tailscale, Cloudflare Zero Trust, WireGuard).

How It Works

Chromium-family browsers natively support syncing to a custom server via the --sync-url flag. selfsync implements the Chrome Sync protocol and stores everything locally in a single SQLite file.

Per-user records use the composite key (email, browser_kind): Edge with alice@example.com and Chrome with alice@example.com are separate user rows in the database, because the two browsers use incompatible cryptographers and ship different permanent bookmark folders. Trying to share one row would corrupt sync state on every commit.

Browser Support

Only Chrome and Edge are tested. Other Chromium-derived browsers (Brave, Vivaldi, Arc, Opera, …) are likely to work because the server treats anything without an X-AFS-ClientInfo: app=Microsoft Edge header as standard Chromium — but we have not verified them.

Browser	Sync works	Multi-user	Notes
Chrome	✅	✅ per email	Standard path
Microsoft Edge	✅	❌ single user only	See below

Edge Limitation

Edge does not send the signed-in account email in its sync requests. Where vanilla Chromium puts your Google account email in the protobuf share field, Edge puts a base64-encoded device GUID. selfsync has no way to recover the real account from that, so all Edge devices fall into one shared user record (anonymous@localhost, browser_kind=edge).

What this means in practice:

• ✅ Multiple Edge devices for the same person sync correctly with each other — the shared record is exactly what you want.
• ⚠️ Multiple Edge users on the same selfsync instance end up sharing one merged dataset (their bookmarks, passwords, etc. all converge into the same record). If you need user separation, run one selfsync instance per user (different port / DB file / container).
• ✅ Edge and Chrome on the same person's account are kept isolated — they are independent user rows by design (incompatible Nigori encryption).

Quick Start

Option 1: Docker Compose (recommended)

docker compose up -d

Data is persisted to a Docker volume.

Option 2: Docker

docker build -t selfsync .
docker run -d -p 8080:8080 -v ./data:/data selfsync

Option 3: Build from source

cargo build --release
./target/release/selfsync-server

Point your browser at the server

Chrome / Chromium:

google-chrome-stable --sync-url=http://127.0.0.1:8080

Microsoft Edge:

microsoft-edge --sync-url=http://127.0.0.1:8080

Then sign in (any account) and turn sync on. Chrome will upload its local bookmarks / passwords / settings to selfsync. No export/import needed.

Configuration

Variable	Default	Description
SELFSYNC_ADDR	127.0.0.1:8080	TCP address to bind
SELFSYNC_DB	selfsync.db	SQLite database path
RUST_LOG	selfsync_server=info,http=info	Log filter (tracing-subscriber syntax)

In the Docker image the defaults are overridden to 0.0.0.0:8080 and /data/selfsync.db.

Endpoints

Path	Method	Purpose
/	GET	HTML user dashboard
/healthz	GET	Liveness check (returns ok)
/command/, /command	POST	Chrome sync protocol entry point
/chrome-sync/command/, /chrome-sync/command	POST	Alternate path (works with --sync-url=http://host:port/chrome-sync)
/v1/feeds/me/syncEntities[/command][/]	POST	Edge sync path variants
/sync/v1/diagnosticData/Diagnostic.SendCheckResult()[/]	POST	Edge MSA private endpoint stub (returns the same 6-byte success envelope as real MSA — required for BookmarkDataTypeController initialization)
/v1/diagnosticData/Diagnostic.SendCheckResult()[/]	POST	Same, alternate prefix

Things to Watch Out For

• Do NOT include /command/ in --sync-url. The browser appends it. Use http://127.0.0.1:8080.
• After resetting the server database, use a fresh browser profile (--user-data-dir=/tmp/test) to avoid stale local sync state.
• Upgrading from v0.1.1: just replace the binary. Schema migrations run automatically — no need to delete selfsync.db.

Building

Requires Rust 1.85+.

Command	Purpose
cargo build --release	Build the workspace
cargo build --release -p selfsync-server	Build the server only
cargo test	Run unit tests
cargo clippy --all-targets -- -D warnings	Strict lint check

Architecture

For protocol details, browser-specific quirks (Edge MSA Nigori, workspace_bookmarks), database schema, and migration internals, see docs/architecture.md.

Prior Art

• Chromium loopback_server.cc — Reference sync server implementation

License

Copyright (C) 2026 Lee <loyalpartner@163.com>

Licensed under GPL-3.0-or-later.