Nextcloud Android App - Automatically Sync Files & Folders

Hi all
I needed that feature too
android 7.1.2 Fairphone OpenOS
nc 15.0.0.10
BR Erich

I wonder, will this still be implemented in the next 10 years? Because until today this doesnā€™t work yet! At least not that I found it somewhere!
Android is an important client and you should pay more attention to it!

2 Likes

I decided to use Nextcloud as I wanted to use a shopping list app, to replace Wunderlist and an app in f-droid (Shopping List) mentioned it could sync via Nextcloud.
Without auto-sync feature this wouldnā€™t work for me, so I headed over to an app which syncs automatically to OneDrive.
Just wanted to inform that Nextcloud could be losing some customers here.
However, I should note, neither OneDrive nor Dropbox has auto-sync feature for Android client yet, so I can understand why it would be low priority for Nextcloud, as well.

1 Like

Just trying out Nextcloud. This has been the first glaring omission Iā€™ve run across. Sad to see this.

1 Like

I also would prefer to keep folders of my choice in sync insted of ā€œonlyā€ uploading new files from the phone.
Nearby I had problems to solve fileconflicts in autoupload folders, when I modified a file on the phone. I solved the conflict (use file from phone), but the conflict popped up again and again. (Dev and Production version)
I also tried to make the sources compile with Android Studio, but I get a failure, because Iā€™m new to Android studio and Java) (come from c++, c# and MS-VisualStudio World)
Hope Iā€™ll get compiling to work somehow.

1 Like

I found a workaround that works for me: configure my camera folder to auto upload, but move the original file to the app folder. That way, the original photos will be moved and all changes from your computer will be accessible on your phone, just from a different folder.

Added benefit for me is that I can tell which photos have been uploaded and which havenā€™t (Iā€™m not always online).

1 Like

Anybody has experience with FolderSync app on Android ?

So nearā€¦

I use an encrypted file system and store the encrypted files in a subfolder of my nextcloud folder on a Linux machine. The Nextcloud desktop client syncs these to my server and from there to other desktop clients (Windows and other Linux PCs). If I need to I can then decrypt and access the valuable contents on those other machines.

With the Android Nextcloud client I can manually sync the crypt folder to get a local copy. I can also mark existing files as ā€˜favouritesā€™ and Iā€™ve found that changes to the underlying clear text files will then remain in sync in the background. However, if the encrypted file system on a PC creates a new file it is not marked as a ā€˜favouriteā€™ on the Android client and so will not be synced by the background processing.

It seems to me that for my use case being able to mark a folder as a ā€˜favouriteā€™ such that any new files created in it are automatically marked as ā€˜favouriteā€™ would solve my problem.

One obvious other way around it for me is to use a container file based encrypting file system and mark the container file as ā€˜favouriteā€™ - but that introduces other problems.

For the moment Iā€™m back to using syncthing (which is an excellent utility) in a separate folder branch - but Iā€™d rather consolidate to the brilliant and more generally useful Nextcloud and not have so many apps running on my phone or PCs.

Since years FolderSync is doing what I expect from a sync tool, keeping my phone synched with the server.

But it synchs only on defined intervals, it does not synch instantly after changes in the files. Which propaply saves battery.

The ads are not very annoying, cus you configure it once and then it should be running in the background.

I would love to see this exact functionality included in the nx app. Or at least see it in any other foss app on f-Droid.
One big reason I still rely on Play Store. Any suggestions here?

Another voice chiming in that actual sync functionality would be greatly appreciated in the Android app. What bugs me is that ā€œfile syncingā€ is mentioned as a feature, but as many others have said, auto-upload is not the functionality that people expect.

Even the documentation here blatantly skips over how to actually sync anything. It literally just says to install and start the app.

Itā€™s been four years since folder syncing was mentioned as a ā€œfeature we plan to add in the futureā€, so at this point it seems unlikely to happen.

Nextcloud is great despite the glitches, but the lack of folder syncing for Android is the only thing thatā€™s making me consider other platforms.

Would love to hear an update on the status of this feature.

5 Likes

The closest feature request / bug report that fits this is Synchronize should also upload locally created files Ā· Issue #8078 Ā· nextcloud/android Ā· GitHub

If you think this is important, then I suggest you vote on this.

Is there an issue on github that is specific to implementing the same feature as it exists on desktop? That means:

  • select a local folder to sync
  • select the remote folder that it should be synced with
  • automatically sync all modifications of existing files and folder + new files and folders

Edit

There are many issues on this, but probably these 3 are the ones should be voting on: