Direct Links for sharing photos and videos in messenger apps

🏷️ General
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I have no support/technical question and have seen the support category. (Be aware that direct support questions will be deleted.)

on

Which general topic do you have

Hi Team,

I am setting up my home NC server and I realized that shared video files cannot be opened on mobile chat apps like messenger. When the link is clicked is states " “The media could not be loaded, either because the server or network failed or because the format is not supported” due to the fact that the shared links give html page not a direct link. In a previous post from 2020 there is a statement that there is a direct link button that i cannot find in v29. I cannot find an app that can create for me public webdav links (the workaround that can point directly to files).
The plan for a personal cloud is to store videos and photos and sharing them with friends across multiple platforms/chats most on mobile phones. Isn’t it that the go to purpose for a personal cloud these days? :slight_smile:
I am very confused on why such functionality is not directly out of the box. What are my options to fix this?

Cheers,
Blago

2

1.) single shared file
You can add to the link for a file e.g. https://cloud.server.tld/index.php/s/abcdefghijklmno the part of the link for download /download so the link is https://cloud.server.tld/index.php/s/abcdefghijklmno/download. Please note that in newer Nextcloud versions you have to allow to display the “Download” when sharing.

Then the client can direct download the file without Nextcloud Web GUI and the client can open the file.

2.) a lot of files in one shared folder
You can also share a folder and set the direct links to the files. You do not need to allow the “Download” (Hide Download) for the shared folder. If you want to access a file in a shared folder you must use a differnt way for the file .e.g mov_bbb.mp4 in the shared folder with share name abcdefghijklmno not folder name.

https://cloud.server.tld/public.php/dav/files/abcdefghijklmno/mov_bbb.mp4

I think this second way is the better way because the link shows the file name and the file suffix. Also you can easily add new files to your shared folder. Works a little bit like a CDN.