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accesing available offline files outside opencloud app #24
Description
I seem to be unable to find and access files/dirs marked with 'Set as available offline' outside opencloud app.
Is it the intended behaviour?
In that case, could there be an option to download a directory, not just a file?
Reacted by Nick, Samo Hribar, Narrat, Sébastien Clément, Simon Verbois, René Seiler, aca-info, Jesse Sopel, nihl4, Max Muth and 17 more
Reacted by ⁂ Tommi
Reacted by Shinebayar G, rrr, Danila Kononov and ⁂ Tommi
Activity
mathmaniac43 commentedon Aug 6, 2025
I am coming to OpenCloud from Nextcloud. In Nextcloud the files were not made available outside the app. I think that would be useful.
The alternate feature that would help me here, and may help you too, would be the ability to add a link/bookmark on my Android homepage to a specific file or folder in OpenCloud. Nextcloud Android had that feature and it let me make the one file I accessed most (KeePass password file) faster to get to. Would love to see OpenCloud implement that.
Thanks for considering!
mustaruhtinas commentedon Aug 6, 2025
That is not correct, files are made available outside the app, and it is not even a new feature. When selecting sync option for a dir, nextcloud will sync it to Android/media/com.nextcloud.client/nextcloud/user@url. This is extremely useful for a whole bunch of apps which use nextcloud for sync instead of having their own syncing solution. However, being able to at least download a dir will help.
mathmaniac43 commentedon Aug 7, 2025
That is great, thanks for clarifying! I did not realize that.
Either way, something along those lines for OpenCloud would be very helpful.
samolego commentedon Aug 12, 2025
Currently if you have root access, you can see the files in the
/data/data/eu.opencloud.androiddirectory. This is more r/o situation though 🙃rstoermer commentedon Sep 3, 2025
Also very interested in this for Obsidian sync :)
simon-verbois commentedon Sep 28, 2025
+1 for a download feature like on web, its really useful to extract multiple files and share them (via mail or whatever)
aca-info commentedon Nov 12, 2025
+1 This is the feature I'm waiting for before switching completely to OpenCloud !
mib4755 commentedon Nov 29, 2025
+1
I would like to sync Obsidian as well
zerox80 commentedon Dec 2, 2025
I will try to implement it and open a PR for this feature, but it can take til january next year until all my opened PRs are merged
JappeHallunken commentedon Dec 27, 2025
yes, me too!
+1
zerox80 commentedon Jan 9, 2026
So basically, the problem is that the Google Files app, for example, doesn't really use DocumentProvider, but simply opens the app directly.
My idea is that when downloading a file, there should be a public folder that only contains the downloads. To make the structure clearer, I think it's better not to use the official download folder in Android. When I download an “mp4” file from the OpenCloud app that is located in the ‘Test’ folder, the file is displayed in the newly created folder under “Test/test.mp4.” In my opinion, this would be a good implementation that would work on any Android system.
aca-info commentedon Jan 9, 2026
Will this public folder contain downloads and sync folders?
VladGrant commentedon Jan 9, 2026
I think the best way to go about it is to at least match what the Nextcloud android app does. It actually gives you options but the default is saving everything to Android/media/com.nextcloud.client which allows everything to access to the files. This also allows other programs to write to this folder and have it synced back to the server.
zerox80 commentedon Jan 9, 2026
Do u not find it problematic (securtiy reasons)? Imagine a Spyware can just access all your files. @guruz For now i implemented a feature which will just create a Folded "OpenCloud" with the downloaded files. It is read only
VladGrant commentedon Jan 9, 2026
This is why the have the option, but for things mentioned here, like syncing KeePass or Obsidian notes this is more or less the only way that I know. If I am not mistaken I've seen a dialog open that asks a user for confirmation to give an app permission to use a folder, so that might be a protection mechanism that can be used.
As it stands a read-only is still only marginally useful and I can't really migrate since I have so many things on my phone that I want to get synced back to OpenCloud.
69 remaining items
zerox80 commentedon May 7, 2026
Yes, exactly. But i am not sure if Google is open or strict. I am pretty pretty sure theyre very strict with that Permission and they only grant it to bigger projects who have good reasons with lot of Downloads. I am afraid if OpenCloud can be on such levels. Thats about the MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission!
adroslice commentedon May 13, 2026
Guess I'll have to keep using syncthing for my obsidian vault, and mount it into the oc data dir if I want access through oc in a pinch
VladGrant commentedon May 13, 2026
I don't see why OpenCloud wouldn't be able to get approval for this seeing how the other two I mentioned got approved.
zerox80 commentedon Jun 8, 2026
Hi,
I took a look at this app: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.documentsui.shortcut/
It is not a file explorer. It is basically a launcher for Android’s native file picker, which normally cannot be opened directly by the user.
The issue is not OpenCloud itself. As mentioned before,
MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGEis a very strict permission. It is mostly intended for legacy apps and is very likely to be rejected on the Play Store. Because of that, we do not want to invest in a large 1,000 to 2,000 line change without knowing whether it would be accepted at all, or for how long.Android clearly wants apps to use the Storage Access Framework instead. However, there is a catch: many file explorers do not handle this well. When you select OpenCloud inside a file explorer, it often redirects you to the OpenCloud app instead of letting you browse the OpenCloud storage directly.
This app solves exactly that problem. It makes it possible to open Android’s native file picker directly and browse the OpenCloud Drive without issues.
StefanBertels commentedon Jun 8, 2026
As a user I want to have multiple subfolders in /storage/emulated/0 synchronized with OpenCloud server.
It's possible with Syncthing and there are different other apps with R/W access to shared storage on global or folder level.
Use case are files that are used by other apps and need to be in an app-independent folder -- no picker involved. Think about Documents, Music, Photo sync, backup files.
Syncthing works fine, but with data stored in OpenCloud a separate background(!) sync solution is a setup with unnecessary stumbling blocks (e.g. proper change detection).
5amm1e commentedon Jun 8, 2026
I can offer another approach guys. The can be 2 app trees: google version with strict access via Storage Access Framework, foss github version with MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission. Many apps deploys different apk versions.
zerox80 commentedon Jun 8, 2026
was my thought too, but it needs planning i guess
and i think solving the already opened PRs (bug fixes) should be merged first
guruz commentedon Jun 9, 2026
How is F-Droid in that regard?
ensapra commentedon Jul 2, 2026
Has there been any update regarding this?
damacchi commentedon Jul 5, 2026
Has there been any progress on this?
VladGrant commentedon Jul 7, 2026
As an example, NextCloud recommend speople use the F-Droid version instead of the play store specifically because of the storage permission.
zerox80 commentedon Jul 7, 2026
Hi, just to clarify my position here: I have contributed mainly in my free time, and I unfortunately cannot take ownership of this feature or maintain a separate APK/fork just to support behavior that would require broader storage access or different permission handling.
I am not an official maintainer of the Android app. If there were a clear and reasonably simple path forward, I would be happy to help where I can, but I cannot commit to driving or maintaining this feature request myself.
Maybe @guruz can share the maintainer perspective on whether this kind of approach would fit the project’s direction.
In general, desktop apps on Linux, macOS, and Windows can be more open in this regard because they are not as tightly constrained by app stores, mobile OS storage models, and Android API restrictions.
My understanding is that the current intention of the Android app is mainly to support basic mobile use cases: uploading files, viewing files and pictures, and sharing files through other apps such as email, Telegram, etc., especially via the file explorer/document provider approach mentioned earlier. Full bidirectional sync or broad external filesystem access would be a much larger feature with different security and maintenance implications.
So I do not want to continue pushing this discussion as if I could maintain that feature myself. I just wanted to clarify the constraints from my side.
sfonteneau commentedon Oct 25, 2026
It would be great to allow users to change the local storage directory used by OpenCloud Android for offline/synchronized files.
Nextcloud Android already offers this feature through its "Data storage location" setting.
Ideally, users should be able to:
The goal is to change the actual storage location, not simply export or copy files.
This is not a request for bidirectional synchronization of arbitrary local folders, just the ability to change OpenCloud's own storage location.
Since Android already supports app-specific storage on external storage without requiring "MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE", could this simpler feature be implemented independently of the more complex synchronization functionality discussed here?