I have used Nextcloud in the past, but abandoned it because it didn’t have a virtual drive, and my collection of files became too large to sync on every machine that needed access to them. Now I hear that there is a virtual drive feature! However, the most recent information that I could find (over a year old) suggests that it doesn’t work on Linux clients. Would someone please confirm this? I have been using Seafile because the drive client works rather well, but only on a limited number of Linux distros, and not at all on FreeBSD. Thanks!
You can add the line showExperimentalOptions=true to the [General] section in the nextcloud.cfg file. The file is located in /home/yourusername/.config/Nextloud. After adding this line the option for Virtual Files should appear in the UI, when you add a new account.
However, apart from a short test when the feature was relatively new, I have no experience with it and can’t tell you how well it works in practice. But there are definitely some limitations compared to Windows, where as far as I understand it, uses some native Windows features in order to provide this functionality.
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@stroudmw
You can also use WebDAV if you like it. You can use it with a file manager e.g. Nautilus or davfs2.
Accessing Nextcloud files using WebDAV — Nextcloud latest User Manual latest documentation
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Does the feature include support for folders that have applied to them client side (e.g. end-to-end) encryption?
@brainchild
For end-to-end encryption you must differ between client side software e.g. Boxcryptor, Cryptomator, … and the Nextcloud end-to-end encryption.
Boxcryptor, Cryptomator, …
In this case for Nextcloud and/or Cloud-WebDAV-services sees only encrypted files. This also applies to the Nextcloud apps for operating systems and mobile devices.
Nextcloud end-to-end
Because of security reason Nextcloud end-to-end only works for Nextcloud apps for operating systems and mobile devices and not for Nextcloud Webgui or operating system file explorer (WebDAV). The encrypted files can only be decrypted within Nextcloud Apps.
Clients - Nextcloud
End to End Encryption - Nextcloud
Production ready End-to-End encryption and new user interfaces arrive with new Nextcloud clients - Nextcloud
I believe the response has not addressed my question.
Virtual Drive operates on the client side, so it may in principle operate within the system for end-to-end encryption, the same as the mechanism for file synchronization.
Also interested in the answer to this question.