Share Link and preview files in web browser

ℹ️ Support
1

Hello,

I’m new to Nextcloud and I was wondering how I can share a link and let everybody with this link preview files – like images and PDFs – in their web browser.

What already works is that everybody with the shared link of a folder can download every image in it. Only if it’s a registered user it is possible to preview files in the browser but I’d really have this feature for unregistered users too. How can I achieve this?
Dropbox for example makes no difference. There you can preview files in a web browser if you’re a registered user or not. I’d like to have the same behaviour. Is this even possible? I did a lot of google search and also navigated trough the whole Nextcloud settings … but found nothing.

FYI, if you are asking for the why: And don’t want every user to register or download files for just viewing some image files I want to share quickly. In my opinion, this is a must have feature for every cloud server and I’m really surprised that this doesn’t work out of the box in Nextcloud. Or at least, not with the actual Chrome browser.

Thanks for any help in advance.

Patrick

2

Can you describe this problem in more detail?

On nextcloud 19 beta 2 non-registered users can view pdf files in their browser. Including shared folders - so this bug is likely fixed already.

3

Thanks Paradox, PDF preview sounds great, what about images?

Ok, let me first try to explain the actual behavior in more detail:
I want to share a folder with some JPEGs and PDFs with a link. No registration needed. When the recipients open the link, they will see all the images and PDFs in list or thumbnail view. Great so far. But when they click on an image or PDF it immediately starts downloading the clicked file. Instead of opening and previewing it in the browser.
In my installation every registered user which follows the shared link can preview the files directly in the browser but non registered users can only download them, no preview possible. Is this a problem of my Nextcloud installation or is this a normal behavior?

Maybe you want to try this behavior on your own: Create a shared link from a folder with images and open it in incognito or private mode of your browser where your are a not a registered user.

4

I can’t replicate this on 19 beta 2. Perhaps you should try it.

Edit: Or rather I can’t replicate the issue you described. It still doesn’t preview the images but it doesn’t force download them either. Opens the previewer but doesn’t load.

So it’s likely a WIP and will be completed before 19 is officially released.

Did you submit a bug report on github for photos? This isn’t the place to contact the developers.

5

On 18.0.3 (and before), pdf preview on public shares works fine.

For the images, it’s a problem with the new photo app, released with NC18. It’s fixed and will be public with the 18.0.4 release, april the 23rd.

6

This sounds great. So glad I don’t have to switch back to Dropbox - they handle this issue perfectly. But I’ll wait for the Nextcloud release. Thanks a lot for your quick feedback!

Happy easter!

7

It’s not fixed in 19 beta 2 so doubtful.

8

That’s what is said few times in this thread. And here on github.

It’s fixed, but maybe not merged yet, in 18 or 19.

9

I updated now to version 18.0.4 and it’s really fixed. Great. The images and PDF files are viewable in the browser trough a shared link.

Thanks for all replies and comments on this topic. And thanks to all developers of Nextcloud for their good work.

Thanks

Patrick

10

I have the same problem in nextcloud 20.0.7
If I share a folder with link unregistered users cannot preview pdf in browser. If thei clik on the pdf file the viewer gives this error:
Immagine 2021-02-24 061651
This problem does not happen for images preview or even office files opened with collabora