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Add an option to disable desktop client sync for external storage #15701
Description
We would like to use some external SMB shares as additional, external storage in Nextcloud.
Those SMB shares are being used internally, they are not directly accessible from outside our networks.
Sometimes a user or group would like to share a folder on those SMB file shares to an external party the easy way, this is where Nextcloud would come into play.
This works fine with Nextcloud, however, there is one problem.
If an SMB share is connected as external storage and assigned to group, let's say 'Project Manhattan', all users of this group get a desktop notification from their Nextcloud desktop clients that there is something new to sync and if they would like to do that.
Some user of Project Manhattan will notice that this is their huge SMB filer share and they don't need to sync this. But others won't, will click yes and terabytes of data will beginn to flow.
A little bit later the operating system of these peoples computer will start complaining about a full harddisk. As they are engineers they fix things themselves, so they launch treesize or something similar and will then remove this huge 'Project Manhattan' folder. What was it doing there anyway? Now another user, working on the SMB filer, begins to wonder where all the calculations have gone.
It happened like this with our test group. Except they do not build bombs, of course.
We are using Nextcloud (previously ownCloud) since a long time.
I saw this feature request more than once over the years, but none of them seems to be open since quite some time. Please indulge me for asking again. :)
I'd appreciate an option on the server to completely disable the client sync for external storage. Global or per external storage does not matter.
Activity
rik26 commentedon May 29, 2019
I have the same request.
We would like to use Nextcloud External Storage to provide a Web Interface to smb shares but without ability to sync any of them.
fredbcode commentedon Jul 5, 2020
Yes, very useful in many cases, SMB, huge files and directories, etc
alebourdoulous commentedon Sep 7, 2020
This is essential to reducing useless load and size used in local hdd with external storage in many cases
fredbcode commentedon Nov 29, 2020
Still essential in the case explained before, I have personally 1 To of collective datas in a directory and a personal directory for each user, the personal directory must be synchronized of course, but the collective one should be only acceded (at least for reading, but writable could be useful)
I guess this is not a very specific usage for professional
TomGem commentedon Dec 3, 2020
In the meantime there has been worked on the Nextcloud client.
I think it's now harder for a user to 'accidentally' sync external storages or group folders.
In my case, some communication with the 'Project Manhattan' group members was helpful too. ;)
I'm good with how it is now and I think, this is more a sync client task anyway.
So I'll close this issue.
PS: To everyone with similar problems, consider the Nextcloud
read onlyoption on some of the external storages. Sometimes it's fine to work directly on the (smb/whatever) server only and use Nextcloud just for reading and sharing.Koky999 commentedon Jan 19, 2026
@TomGem Hi, you mentioned that now (in the past) was "harder for a user to 'accidentally' sync external storages or group folders." How? Was that time there you could tick folders which you want to sync? There are no option to optionally tick which folders to sync (maybe when all content is downloaded, not when you use virtual files).
It would be great if there should be an option with turn on or turn off to sync external storage even in virtual files, because we have about 300 active users and many of them mapped SMB drive to Nextcloud (because they need to access this SMB share from home through Nextcloud), but when there is a Nextcloud Desktop, it's still syncing this SMB share (it's about 4 TB of data, small files) so it never finish and then it don't sync any other files from different folders (non-external storages)
TomGem commentedon Jan 20, 2026
@Koky999 I see your point, the original problem still exists. Especially with larger instances, where you often no longer have direct user contact. The downvotes on "I'm closing this issue", which I just saw, also point in this direction. :)
So I'm reopening the issue.
TLDR; @nextcloud team, it would be great to have the option in the admin area to exclude external storage from client sync. See opening post.
Koky999 commentedon Jan 20, 2026
Thank you very much @TomGem We will see what can they do. I'm looking forward to migrate all SMBs to Nextcloud, but now we are just in the middle where we have many SMBs and people using it and also many people who started to use Nextcloud.
Merpzz commentedon Sep 13, 2026
Concrete implementation angle to help move this forward: the plumbing for exactly this already exists in both repos.
Server:
FilesPlugin::handleGetProperties()(apps/dav/lib/Connector/Sabre/FilesPlugin.php) already emits a custom{http://nextcloud.org/ns}mount-typeWebDAV property per-node. Async-disabledproperty could follow the identical pattern, sourced from a new per-mount toggle in External Storage admin config (alongside the existing "Enable Sharing" option).Client:
folderwizard.cpp/folderstatusmodel.cppalready fetch sibling custom properties (e.g.nextcloud.org/ns:is-encrypted) via PROPFIND specifically to drive the "choose what to sync" picker UI. The new property would extend that same list and grey out/auto-exclude the folder there, plus should be enforced in the actual sync discovery engine (not just the picker) so it can't be silently bypassed by manual config edits.Happy to attempt a PR for the server-side half if a maintainer can confirm this is the direction you'd want — want to avoid sinking time into an approach that gets redirected architecturally.
Merpzz commentedon Sep 14, 2026
Opened PRs implementing this, following up on the design sketch from my earlier comment:
enable_syncmount option andnc:sync-enabledWebDAV propertyTested end-to-end on a real running instance + a build of the patched client: toggling the option off/on live correctly made a mount disappear/reappear from the client's sync folder picker, with a control mount (option left enabled) working normally throughout.
Happy to iterate on naming/design based on feedback.
Add enable_sync option and sync-enabled WebDAV property for external …
Exclude server-side sync-disabled mounts from the folder picker
Add enable_sync option and sync-enabled WebDAV property for external …
Exclude server-side sync-disabled mounts from the folder picker
[-]Completely disable client sync for external storage on the Nextcloud server[/-][+]Add an option to disable desktop client sync for external storage[/+]