I'm curious what you mean by files being unusable outside Nextcloud? Are you using server-side encryption?
Edit: to sync only selected folders, there should be a Choose what to sync button. Or you can skip the initial sync config and set per-folder sync afterwards from settings.
Maybe https://drime.cloud/ is what you are looking for..
You can access all Nextcloud files over WebDAV. That is natively supported by many file browsers, including explorer.exe on Windows.
And you can choose in the Linux client what folders to sync.
What the Linux client (in contrast to the Windows client) does not support is having virtual files in a folder and only downloading files on demand.
Apart from that, have you looked at Opencloud?
On Windows, Nextcloud seems to tap into some Windows function to provide files on demand. Is there any Linux cloud file service that can do it?
Nextcloud implements webdav, which you can use rclone to mount as a remote.
Also many distros have an online account option which does the same thing
In my experience it's not quite the same. Using webdav through the distro account seems that it's fully online. And folder access or file access contacts the server.
The virtual file experience is more of a hybrid. All the folders actually exist on disk, as well as shells for every file. If you try to open a virtual file, in the background Windows will seamlessly download it for you. At that point the file is actually on your disk. This way regularly accessed files on on your hard drive and seldom accessed ones are not, saving local hard drive space while providing an experience almost like if all the files were actually on your drive.
You could probably do this with FUSE. Guess nobody cared to make that yet.
It exists and I've tried it - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davfs2
Thing is, when an app thinks a directory is on a local disk, it does things which do not scale well over a network. e.g. reading every file in the directory to make thumbnails.
Seafile has fuse for accessing it as a folder.
What the Linux client (in contrast to the Windows client) does not support is having virtual files in a folder and only downloading files on demand.
This is specifically what I want.
And...somehow I missed opencloud in all of my searching? I think I may have mentally combined it with OwnCloud/OCIS. It looks promising. Diving into the docs, now.
Opencloud is a fork of the new Owncloud, I think. Similar to how Nextcloud was forked from the old Owncloud.
There’s opencloud which seems to be exactly what you’re looking for – a files-only lightweight alternative for nextcloud. When I was looking for the post on hacker news I also ran across karadav which seems like it might be a nice hybrid between the DAVs suggested by other users and your existing nextcloud install.
Opencloud is a fork from Owncloud Infinite Scale just as nextcloud was a fork from the old Owncloud version.
Apparently much much simpler and more performant than nextcloud in almost every way. It also has a secure file sharing link feature.
They are also based in Germany.
I am about to spin up opencloud behind traefik and authelia hopefully this week or weekend.
Thanks for clearing that up!
i was also going to suggest opencloud as an option - i'm looking to move my setup from nextcloud to opencloud when i have the time to migrate
Nextcloud Linux client has an option to selectively sync folders no?
It does in the version I am using
You can select which files you sync. I have a couple of folders that sync everywhere, and some are only synced on one machine.
Pretty sure you should have the ability to choose what to sync, either from the server, or the client. Seems kind of dumb for it to automatically assume you have the space on the client device to sync EVERYTHING.
I thought the same thing, but I've spent a good chunk of time looking at every button in the linux client, and it's just options of "sync: y/n", with an initial choice of "do not sync if folder size is 500MB+". And the files/folders not synced do not show up locally. The windows client lets you see everything, but only download when you open or pick "save locally". But not on Linux.
Docs say you can choose what to sync, and disable syncing entirely where you don't want it: https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/latest/user_manual/en/desktop/usage.html
There should be a nearly identical menu to the Windows version that lets you select or deselect folders.
Click on your account > settings. And then it will show the list of folders available to sync.
I've replaced my nextcloud install with copyparty... Nextcloud went tits up for me after a reboot, the database kept complaining about illegal characters. I have no idea how to solve it, after restoring a backup proved fruitless. So I dropped it. I already had a test instance of copyparty running, I just incorporated the nextcloud data folder to it.
The only thing I miss is the cookbook. But I have the json files, I think I'll cobble together a json interpreter for the files so that I can copy the recipes into some other application.
The only thing from your list that copyparty can't do is keep files offline. It doesn't use a sync-ing client.
It's not free but it's awesome and cheap. Setup a WebDAV share and join it using "Mountainduck.io". It connects to everything like SMB but I find WebDAV's multichannel is more performant in the long run. Checks notes Win/Mac only sorry.
I'm searching too. Seafile keeps popping up, but I haven't looked at it yet.
Seafile apparently obfuscates the files, which is not great. If it dies, or they pull some weird shutdown shenanigans, what happens to my files? Nexcloud, at least, is readable and organized, if (in my opinion) weird.
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