this post was submitted on 25 May 2026
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I decided to try Nextcloud after not using it for 10 years, and after testing it a bit I find myself turned off by the email (and other profile options) being visible to "everyone" by default.

I found how to disable the profile by default : email still visible Hide the email in profile settings of user manualy : still visible completely remove email : no notifications

In addition to that, from what I understand, even if I change the default setting to private the other profile options, they are automatically shared with anyone you connect to the Talk app?? I was really hoping to try it out, but that's another turnoff.

It does not seem to be a problem to most users so they have not done anything since 2019 about it (from the github issues and forum threads I found). It is an instant turnoff to me, I am questionning using it only for myself and use something else to share with family.... if you have a solution for the user info privacy, I am all ears.

I just want a multiuser file sharing app that works with authentik and works with android/windows/linux. Bonus points if it does not encrypt files on the server.

Edit to add : I tried seafile and it kept going down and corrupted a lot of files after an unexpected server shutdown. It shared the corruption to all the local files on every app/pc I had it shared to. Never figured out a way to restore the healthy files from a backup (that's a me problem but still not a fun experience). Thankfully I was the only user, I try to test out the apps a few months/year before sharing.

TLDR : what alternatives do you have to nextcloud or seafile ?

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[–] melroy@kbin.melroy.org 1 points 51 minutes ago

So these are called apps in nextcloud. You can actually create a group and put your user to that group. Then you can include and exclude groups from applications.

This is possible in nextcloud. That way only you for example can see the email app.

[–] dan@upvote.au 1 points 1 hour ago

Syncthing is pretty good.

I tried seafile and it kept going down and corrupted a lot of files after an unexpected server shutdown. It shared the corruption to all the local files on every app/pc I had it shared to.

This sounds like an issue with your server rather than with Seafile specifically. Was the unexpected shutdown due to a power outage? You should have a UPS so that it can properly shut down during outages. You'll hit similar issues with any other system otherwise.

[–] semi@lemmy.ml 6 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

File browser quantum allows for file sharing, supports Authentik through OIDC, and doesn't mess with the data on disk.

[–] dan@upvote.au 1 points 1 hour ago

Interesting - I've never heard of this but it looks useful. Love that it supports OIDC. Thanks for the link.

[–] MTK@lemmy.world 7 points 5 hours ago

Copyparty is good for me, very basic but both highly customizable and quick to setup with sane defaults.

On android I use a DAVx⁵ mount

[–] cecilkorik@lemmy.ca 14 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

I am questionning using it only for myself and use something else to share with family

I'm confused, you don't want your family to be able to know each other's email addresses? That seems like a bit... extreme level of profile paranoia.

I have my family on my Nextcloud and I can guarantee 90% of them don't even know where their own user profile is nevermind anybody else's. Maybe you have a different family than mine.

[–] mhzawadi@lemmy.horwood.cloud 4 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Also, you could setup users without email. As I don't think it's mandatory

Edit: can confirm email is optional

[–] gooeyglob@lemmy.world 8 points 5 hours ago

I'm not sure I really understand your use case, but OwnCloud and OpenCloud offer fewer features than Nextcloud and are mostly about file sharing.

Other things you could consider: pydio cells, or Copy party (very simple and more just cloud storage, no syncing).

[–] stratself@lemdro.id 12 points 7 hours ago

Opencloud.eu should be leaner, has apps for those platforms, and preserves file structure on-disk. If you don't need fancy syncing options and just wanna share links to file, look into copyparty

[–] Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 2 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Expand on your file sharing model/needs/usage pattern. .

Syncthing synchronizes specified folders. It's quite configurable, but it's really meant for a stable, regular syncing process. If you need more ad-hoc, it can do it but it's not like using a network share.

Resilio Sync has a neat feature - selective sync, that allows you to grab specific files from a shared folder ad-hoc, rather than always sync all files all the time. I use it to grab media files (multi-gig) from my server when traveling.

IIRC, both have a "send only" setting for a sync job, so everyone could simply share to a specific folder, and have selective sync enabled for that folder... I think.

Both are Windows/Linux/iOS, and I think they're both Mac.

[–] Decronym@lemmy.decronym.xyz 1 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 47 minutes ago)

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters More Letters
SFTP Secure File Transfer Protocol for encrypted file transfer, over SSH
SMB Server Message Block protocol for file and printer sharing; Windows-native
SSH Secure Shell for remote terminal access

2 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 15 acronyms.

[Thread #313 for this comm, first seen 25th May 2026, 04:30] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

[–] nutbutter@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)
[–] undrwater@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

This right here is the answer. Active Directory too, but not sure how much that costs.

[–] A_norny_mousse@piefed.zip 1 points 6 hours ago

NextCloud does a lot more than just filesharing, and I'm not familiar with Seafile (anymore). I had to read your full post to understand what you're looking for, only to realize that I cannot help with that particular aspect.

Sorry.