I am wanting to retrieve the actual files from a previous NC installation. I don’t want to lose the files. I am going to reinstall NC on a Win 11 machine but not sure which route I’m going to install it. The drive is full and I would like to save the actual files to Windows first and when I install NC on it, I can copy files back over and keep a backup on Windows. I had NC setup to backup photos directly from our phones and those phones are gone but the pictures are on NC and don’t want to lose them. Is there a way to do this so that the files can be put on a windows drive and be usable on Windows and then I could upload them again after I reinstall ? I think I took ownership of the drive since I can access it but everything is locked but I can only read I guess it’s the metadata. I’m a real noob to this but I want to use one machine for a Windows “server” and a VM of NC. After this is done I will work on getting NC setup on a Ubuntu 24.04 VM. Most importantly, I want to get the files first. Do I have to reinstall NC on the same machine again and download them? I appreciate the help in advance. Thank you.
Original Nextcloud version before 14
Original Operating system and version (Ubuntu 18.04)
Apache or nginx version I don’t remember, but it was Apache
PHP version I don’t remember but somewhere in the high 7s I think.
The issue you are facing:
I’m wanting to save the files on a Windows 11 drive as some of the files are not replaceable. Somehow, they were deleted from Windows and I’m sure I did it somehow back when I had Windows 10. I just want to back the files up on a drive as actual readable files on Windows. I am going to install the newest version of NC on 24.04 LTS as a VM on the Windows 11 machine, if I can figure it out.
If you are not using server-side encryption, you can simply copy the files from /path/to/nextcloud/data/yourusername. Have a look at the data there first. Use this data for a real extra backup. You should always have a backup of your data. Nextcloud is not a backup.
You will not be able to save the metadata such as shares etc. as this is within the Nextcloud database and you would have to update all releases from Nextcloud 14 to Nextcloud 29.
However, you can install Nextcloud 29 on an actual e.g. Ubuntu 24.04 LTS or Debian 12, manually copy the data back to /path/to/nextcloud/data/username and then run sudo -u www-data php /path/to/nextcloud/occ files:scan --all.
Maybe you can get yourself a 10+ year old computer (preferably Linux), install Nextcloud and import your backup data to Nextcloud 29 as a test.
Make a backup before you do anything on your normal hardware and software.
I have a drive as backup but I’m not sure if it was up to date as it’s been quite a while since I’ve used it. I was trying to install the newer version from 18.04 to 20.04 and it wouldn’t install as things have changed between the 2. Both the NC and the BU seem to be the same size but NC isn’t installed on the system. I’m assuming it has to be to access the actual files so they can be read in Windows. I don’t really know and that’s why I’m here, is to seek help. I don’t want to lose these files. I have a machine that has Ubuntu on it as I figured it would need to be installed to get the files but I can’t even install everything to work properly. I have a post in the installation section for that. I suffered some severe head trauma and it seems like I need to be guided on how to do some things especially when there are multiple things that have to be done and in order. It looks like what you’re saying is that I will have to install NC to gain access to the data and I can download the files to windows from NC. If I’m wrong, I’m sorry but that’s what I’m interpreting. I’m also very new to Ubuntu which makes it harder. I do appreciate you help. I tried installing a snap package but it says smb client isn’t installed apache isn’t installed and at that point I kinda gave up. NC 13 is no longer on the machine because I was trying to install the 20.04 at the time and never got NC installed. I thought the snap packages contained everything you need to install NC but I guess it isn’t.