I have setup Nextcloud-AIO on my VPS and have been using it with much satisfaction for a couple of weeks.
I have a couple of questions regarding files and folders that are present by default at the root of a user’s tree in the “Files” app on setup. These are for example (non-exhaustive list): “Devices”, “Documents”, “Movies” folders, “Nextcloud Manual.pdf”, “Readme.md” files.
At first I thought that I would remove these files and folders to clear up my workspace and use only my own files system/organization. But then I noticed that the “Notes” folder contains the notes that I have written in the “Notes” app, as markdown files.
This lead me to think that these files and folders are used by Nextcloud, and that I shouldn’t delete them because it might break functionalities, or have other unwanted effects (for example, I am guessing that I would have lost access to my notes in the “Notes” app if I had removed the “Notes” folder at the root of the “Files” app).
So my questions are:
Can I safely delete these files and folders, or should I leave them untouched because they’re necessary for Nextcloud’s functionalities?
If I shouldn’t touch them, which of these files are actually necessary and for which of Nextcloud’s functionalities? (for example, I am guessing I can delete “Reasons to use Nextcloud.pdf” either way)
The default files are sometimes called the “skeleton” files. There is some documentation on the here:
The Notes isn’t part of these. Technically it gets created by the Notes app during your an accounts first use. But you’re correct that it contains your notes so it’s important.
Hi @jtr,
Thanks for your reply! Reading the documentation you shared clarified things for me.
When I first asked my question, I was couldn’t tell the difference between the skeleton files (which are not required by Nextcloud’s apps if I understand correctly), and other folders that are created automatically by apps upon first use (as you explained for Notes).
In case it’s useful for other AIO users: there’s a section in Nextcloud-AIO’s documentation explaining how to change the skeleton directory contents. As explained in the config parameters documentation, it can be disabled by setting skeletondirectory to an empty string (for AIO: docker exec --user www-data -it nextcloud-aio-nextcloud php occ config:system:set skeletondirectory --value="").
I ran a little test: disabled skeletondirectory and templatedirectory, created a new user, and tried using apps (created a note in Notes app, created an album with an image file in Photos app, etc). All folders are created automatically within Files.
My conclusion is: yes some folders in the Files app are used by other Nextcloud apps, at least “Notes”, “Photos”, “Shared” and “Talk” (maybe their location within the Files app can be customized?). If they’re missing, they’ll be automatically created when using the apps that rely on them. So, if they’re empty, they can be safely deleted.
One thing to note: after removing the template directory, no template is suggested when creating a new document in Files app (makes sense). This makes document creation much faster (it seems that reading templates was taking quite some time on my instance).