Feiner einstellbare Berechtigungen in Nextcloud dringend nötig / Finer-grained permission control in Nextcloud urgently needed

ℹ️ Support
1

Hallo zusammen,

ich arbeite seit einigen Jahren mit Nextcloud in Kundenprojekten und stoße immer wieder auf dasselbe Problem:

Die Berechtigungen in Gruppenordnern sind zu grob und lassen sich nicht praxisgerecht anpassen.

Konkret:

Wenn man das Recht „Löschen“ deaktiviert, können Benutzer auch keine Dateien umbenennen oder verschieben.

Das liegt daran, dass Nextcloud diese Aktionen technisch als „move operation“ behandelt. Verständlich aus Sicht des Dateisystems – aber im Arbeitsalltag völlig unpraktisch.

Viele Organisationen wollen ihren Mitarbeitern ermöglichen, Inhalte zu strukturieren und sinnvoll zu benennen, aber eben nicht versehentlich zu löschen.

Mit der aktuellen Logik ist das nicht möglich. Man muss sich entscheiden zwischen:

  • zu restriktiv (alles gesperrt, keine Organisation möglich)
    oder

  • zu offen (Löschrisiko).

Was fehlt, ist eine feingranulare Rechteverwaltung, zum Beispiel getrennt nach:

  • Lesen

  • Schreiben / Erstellen

  • Umbenennen

  • Verschieben

  • Löschen

  • Internes Teilen

  • Externes Teilen

Gerade bei Gruppenordnern, die als zentrale Projekt- oder Teamlaufwerke dienen, wäre das ein riesiger Fortschritt.

Ich habe inzwischen mehrere Kunden, die diesen Punkt bemängeln – einer davon hat sich deswegen gegen Nextcloud entschieden.

Zur Einordnung:

Wir verwenden die aktuellste Nextcloud-Version, gehostet bei Hetzner, also keine veraltete Instanz.

Das Problem besteht also auch im neuesten Release und betrifft produktive Setups direkt beim Hosting-Partner.

Daher meine Frage an die Entwickler und die Community:

Gibt es Pläne, die Rechteverwaltung künftig differenzierter zu gestalten oder als Feature aufzunehmen?

Falls es dazu bereits ein offizielles Issue oder eine Roadmap gibt, wäre ein Hinweis super.

Viele Grüße

English version:

Hi everyone,

I’ve been working with Nextcloud in client environments for several years and keep running into the same issue:

The permission system in Group Folders is too coarse and not practical enough for real-world use.

Specifically:

If you disable the “Delete” permission, users are also unable to rename or move files.

I understand this from a technical perspective (since it’s treated as a move operation), but in daily work this is a real limitation.

Most organizations want their users to be able to organize and rename files, but not delete them accidentally.

At the moment you have to choose between:

  • too restrictive (no flexibility to organize files)
    or

  • too open (risk of deletion).

What’s missing is a finer-grained permission model, for example separated into:

  • Read

  • Write / Create

  • Rename

  • Move

  • Delete

  • Internal sharing

  • External sharing

Especially in larger environments using Group Folders as shared team or project drives, this would make a huge difference.

Several of our clients have raised this issue – one even decided against Nextcloud because of it.

For context:

We are running the latest Nextcloud version hosted by Hetzner, so this is not about outdated code.

The limitation exists in the most recent release and directly affects production setups.

Are there any plans to improve or expand the permission system in future versions?

If there’s already an issue or roadmap item, I’d appreciate a pointer.

Best regards

1 Like
2

Unfortunatelley you did not write, which apps currently are installed.
The command can be found in the Support Template.

Did you checkout the app Files_accesscontrol?

3

Thanks for the reply.
The list of installed apps isn’t really relevant in this case.
This isn’t about missing functionality from Files_accesscontrol or other add-ons, but about how permissions work in Group Folders in general.

Even on a clean setup – latest Nextcloud version, hosted at Hetzner, only the core apps and Group Folders – the problem is the same:
Users can’t rename or move files unless they also have delete rights.

That makes it impossible to give someone the ability to organize content without also allowing them to delete things.
Files_accesscontrol doesn’t solve that, because it’s rule-based, not a rights system.

What’s needed is a simple way for normal users to share folders internally with their team members and set rights like read, write, no delete.
Directly from the UI, not via admin rules or automation.

This is about everyday collaboration inside teams, not external sharing.
Right now, you either give too many rights or too few – there’s no middle ground.

Best

4

Can you tell me, which file system does allow that?

1 Like
5

That’s exactly the problem.

I get that on a filesystem level, rename or move might technically involve delete operations.
But this isn’t about how Linux handles inodes. It’s about what users expect from a collaboration platform.

In real use, rename and move are organizational actions, not destructive ones.
People don’t care about backend details, they just want to keep their folders in order without the risk of deleting files.

Nextcloud already abstracts filesystem behavior in many other places, so it should do that here too.
The permission model should follow what people actually do in shared workspaces, not what the filesystem happens to require.

Other tools like SharePoint, FileCloud or Seafile solved this long ago.
They all separate data management (rename, move, copy) from data destruction (delete).
That’s what’s missing here.

6

If you move files around (on purpose or by accident) you can also “destroy” the data structure. So some people even ask about a feature that you can do certain stuff but not move around too many files or folders.

If you delete something by accident, there should be the trash bin where you can restore things.

Also if people work productively on a folder (create content), they need full access, if they want to rename things, delete old stuff, restructure things, remove files they put there by accident etc.

Nowadays, you end up with a number of shares (so I don’t see the shares I am not part of) vs. before (on network shared drives) there might have been folders you couldn’t access.

1 Like
7

However, the way Seafile handles file storage also comes with one major drawback: it doesn’t allow transparent file access. You can’t simply cd into a folder and view your data. This means that if, for example, your database becomes corrupt, you lose direct access to your files.

With Nextcloud, on the other hand, even if you completely remove Nextcloud and its database, your files remain fully accessible through the underlying filesystem, no recovery tools needed.

2 Likes
8

I understand your point, but that argument doesn’t really hold. Sure, moving or renaming files can change an existing structure, but that’s not “destroying” anything. It’s part of normal collaboration. That’s the difference between control and trust in a shared workspace.

The trash bin only helps when something is deleted, not when files are renamed or moved. If someone accidentally moves or renames a file, there’s no easy way to undo it. And even if there were, that’s not a reason to block these actions entirely.

The idea that “productive users need full access” isn’t always true either. In many teams, roles are clearly defined: some people create content, others organize or review it. A proper permission model should reflect that, without forcing admins to choose between chaos and paralysis.

Other systems handle this separation just fine. Nextcloud shouldn’t be less flexible than a simple network share.

9

I can’t speak for @tflidd here, but I for myself can certainly see how this could be useful, particularly for larger organisations. Ultimately, however, we can’t change things here in the forum, so you don’t necessarily need to convince us. :wink:

Also, while I’m neither an expert nor a developer, I’d imagine such a change probably can’t be implemented overnight with just a small patch, as it may require deeper changes or additional prerequisites in the Nextcloud core.

However, I see that you have already opened a feature request on GitHub, so I’d say let’s see what the developers think…

1 Like
10

Works as designed:

1 Like
11

I think for that idea you have the workflows:

I’m not sure, if the tags are not part of the workflows, so you can also control access to files (e.g. as they go through a certain process).

12

Du sprichst aber schon von der Team-Ordner-App, die früher Group Folder hieß, oder?