How to use nextcloud client on same machine that nextcloud's server is running on without using double space?

ℹ️ Support
1

Nextcloud version (eg, 12.0.2): 13.0.1
Operating system and version (eg, Ubuntu 17.04): Arch Linux 64-bit
Apache or nginx version (eg, Apache 2.4.25): 2.4.33
PHP version (eg, 7.1): 7.2.5

The issue you are facing:

I’m not really facing an issue, just wondering how to do the above. I have nextcloud server running on my machine, and 4 other machines using it using the nextcloud client. However I’d like my host machine (let’s call it machine A) to also be able to use the files shared from nextcloud without duplicating them.

In other words, I have nextcloud’s data in (for example) A:/var/www/nextcloud/data

And on my other machines, it’s all synced to ~/Nextcloud

How can I get A to also have ~/Nextcloud in such a way that changes I make while running A both get propagated (data) correctly. I’ve tried just symlinking or bind-mounting the folders, but deletions, for example, don’t show up in the web interface (although trying to access the deleted file obviously fails).

2

Hi,

Using the Files External App should be the best solution here. With that app you can bind the local folders you would like to use on that machine to Nextcloud. I believe you need to use another directory than your normal data directory and as you and your other clients want to access the same data (as I understood it), you would not use your data folder (configured in config.php) at all. So it would be a whole new approach where to actually store your data.

Using that External Files App is how other users do it, if they want to access SMB or other network shares (including NAS) and also want to use local folders in NC. For you it might become a complete switch over, depending in your needs.
And by the way, you can configure your “external” storage to count for the quota, so no loss of comfort there :slight_smile: