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Access methods

Mobile apps

Your files reach a phone or a tablet in three ways: through one of the Nextcloud apps, which browse your account like a native app and upload your photos by themselves; through the mobile browser, which gives you the whole of FileRun and can be added to your home screen; or through any WebDAV app you already like. This page covers all three.

Important

The API has to be enabled before any app can connect, and your installation has to be reachable over https:// with a trusted certificate. The API is served only over HTTPS, with no option to allow plain HTTP, not even for testing.

Before you start

The API is enabled once, by an administrator, for the whole installation:

  1. Sign in to the FileRun installation as superuser.
  2. Open the control panel.
  3. Select API → Settings from the menu.
  4. Tick the Enable API checkbox.
  5. Click Save Changes.

Guest accounts cannot use the apps at all. They reach their files through the web interface only. See Guest accounts.

Android app

  • Nextcloud — the one to install for everyday use.
  • FolderSync — a different kind of tool, for scheduled one-way or two-way sync between a folder on the phone and a folder on the server. It connects over WebDAV and needs an app password.

iOS app

Signing in

The Nextcloud apps ask only for the address of your FileRun installation. They then open it in the phone's browser, where you sign in as usual and approve the connection with a tap.

There is no password to type into the app. FileRun creates a set of credentials for that phone by itself and hands them over; you never see them. Because the sign-in happens in the browser, your second factor applies to it like it does to any other sign-in.

The connection is listed under Account settings → Connected apps, which is where you cut that phone off again, without disturbing your other devices. See App passwords.

You can add several accounts to the same app and switch between them.

What the apps are good at

Your whole account, not a copy of it. The app lists your files, the folders shared with you and the storage your administrator attached to your account, and downloads a file only when you open it. Images, videos and documents have thumbnails, and video and audio play in the app without waiting for the whole file to arrive.

Photos uploaded by themselves. This is the reason most people install the app. Point auto upload at your camera roll and every picture you take lands in a folder of your choosing, sorted into subfolders by date if you want, in the background and without you remembering to do it. It can be held back until you are on Wi-Fi, or until the phone is charging, and it can delete the local copy afterwards or leave it alone. A phone that fills up with photos stops being a problem.

Files kept for when there is no signal. Mark a file or a folder for offline use and the app keeps a real copy on the phone and refreshes it when it changes. Everything else stays on the server.

Uploads from any other app. FileRun appears in the share menu of the phone, so a document, a scan or a voice recording can be sent to a folder of your account from the app that made it.

Links to share. From a file's menu you can create a web link, protect it with a password and send it on, without opening a browser.

Comments and stars. The comments left on a file in FileRun show in its details in the app, and you can add one from there. A file you star in FileRun is a favourite in the app, and the other way around. See Starred items.

A lock of its own. The apps can be locked with a passcode or your fingerprint, separately from the phone's own lock screen, which is worth turning on for an app holding all your documents.

What to do in the browser instead

The apps were written for a different server component, and the parts of them that FileRun does not answer are simply quiet. Open FileRun in the phone's browser for:

  • Searching. The app's search does not reach FileRun. The web interface searches names, metadata and, where indexing is configured, the contents of your files. See Search.
  • Sharing with people. The app can only make links. Sharing a file or a folder with another FileRun user or a group is done in the web interface.
  • The trash and previous versions. Neither is shown in the apps. Deleted files and earlier versions of a file are recovered from the web interface. See The trash and File versioning.
  • Notifications. The apps receive none. FileRun tells you about activity by e-mail instead.
  • Editing documents together. The apps open a document with whatever app your phone uses for that file type. FileRun's collaborative editing runs in the browser.

What happens on the server

An app is not a special path through FileRun. What it does goes through the same rules as everything else:

  • A file you delete on the phone is moved to FileRun's trash, not removed.
  • A file you replace leaves its previous content as an older version.
  • Transfers count against your quota while they run, so an upload that would not fit fails early. See Storage quotas.
  • Large files are sent in pieces, and an upload that breaks off resumes where it stopped instead of starting again, which matters on a phone changing between Wi-Fi and mobile data.
  • Everything is written to your activity log, large uploads included, which record their start and their progress.

FileRun in your mobile browser

The web interface is built for a small screen as well as a large one, and it is the only place where every FileRun feature is available. Nothing has to be installed.

Open FileRun in the browser and use Add to Home screen, in Safari on iOS or in the browser's menu on Android. FileRun then opens from an icon like any other app, without the browser's address bar around it. What you get is the interface you already know: search, sharing with users, the trash, previous versions, metadata, comments and the file plugins. You can upload whole folders from a phone, and a PDF opens in your device's own viewer.

Any other WebDAV app

Anything that speaks WebDAV can reach your files. Some that work well:

These apps cannot send you to a browser to approve a connection, so they ask for a username and a password. Create an app password for each one with the Connect app option, and scan its QR code rather than typing the values on a phone keyboard. Your normal FileRun password is refused.

The address to give them, and the rest of the details, are on the WebDAV page.

Joplin

Joplin is a note-taking app for MacOS, Linux, Windows, iOS and Android that can keep its notes on your own server. To sync them through FileRun, open Joplin's settings and:

  1. Choose WebDAV as the synchronization target.
  2. Set WebDAV URL to https://mydomain.tld/filerun/dav.php/%40Home/Joplin

Change the first part to match your own FileRun installation URL. The Joplin at the end is the folder the notes are stored in, and you have to create it yourself, in your FileRun home folder, before the first sync. Sign in with an app password, as with any other WebDAV app.