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Selfhosted @lemmy.world
SinTan1729 @programming.dev

Suggestion request: Self-hosted app for shared directories like google drive

I thought of this after a recent trip with some friends. We shared the photos when we were still in person. But sometimes we need to share a lot of photos over the internet. In the past, we have used a shared google drive directory for this. But I'd prefer a self-hosted option. There should be some sort of password protection as well (ideally per share, and no need for accounts). One should be able to both access the current files and upload new ones, just like google drive or dropbox.

I currently have FileShelter, which works for 1-to-1 sharing but not for groups. I guess something like ProjectSend would work, but it's too complex for my usecase. I'd prefer something more lightweight since I'll maybe use it once every few months. Also, it should be noob-friendly, and accessible using a browser.

Update: I'm very happy with copyparty. It does what I want, and much much more. I even replaced my older webdav server with it since it provides more granular control over share locations and permissions. Kudos to the developer @tripflag@lemmy.world!

44 comments

  • Mind if I suggest my own software, copyparty?

    Regarding authentication, someone who has an account (in this case just yourself) can create password-protected shares which other people can browse, or upload, or browse+upload to (configurable when creating the share).

    There is WebDAV support, and it should integrate well enough with shares, but I haven't tested that specifically.

    It has photo and video thumbnails, and a basic image-viewer, and with some elbow-grease it can also show exif-tags (gps-coordinates etc).

    There is also optional file dedup, so if two people upload the same file, it'll detect and skip that during the 2nd upload (doesn't waste any bandwidth) and swap out the new file with a symlink to the existing one. Default disabled to avoid surprising someone with symlinks.

    I think the following command would be enough to get you started: 

     undefined
            wget https://github.com/9001/copyparty/releases/latest/download/copyparty-sfx.py
    python3 copyparty-sfx.py -a sintan:yourpassword -v .::A,sintan --shr=/shr -e2dsa -e2ts

    but since that's entirely unreadable, you can do it with a config file instead, 

     undefined
            [global]
      e2dsa  # enable filesystem indexing 
      e2ts  # enable media indexing (music tags)
      shr: /shr  # enable shares under this url

    [accounts]
      sintan: yourpassword 

    [/]  # create a volume at this url
      /srv/share/partypics  # the filesystem path to share
      accs:
        sintan: A  # give sintan read-write-move-delete-admin

    and use it like this: 

     undefined
            python3 copyparty-sfx.py -c the.conf

    there's another example here and here for inspiration.

    • To me, it's always nice meeting the face behind the software. I have never used copyparty, but if I had a use case, it would be high on the list just based of the volume of detailed instructions. I think that is probably the most detailed selfhosted piece of software I've seen at GitHub......gotta be something good going on with that. And...and replete with pictures of the UI in a variety of scenarios. That's just top drawer in my book. If a need ever arises, I have bookmarked it, because that's where I'll start. Awesome job my man, and thank you for your dedication to the craft.

    • Oh hey, this is just what I was looking for recently! I wanted to recommend PirateBox to another thread on here, but realised it was eol'ed six years back. This is pretty much similar usage, right?

    • Hey, that looks awesome. I'll try it out when I get back from work.

      Edit: This is awesome! It satisfies my requirements and goes beyond. Great app!

  • Pictures specifically Immich.
    But I don't know how (well) it works without any password and shared albums.

  • Maybe something like xbackbone? I've used it to share small-ish files and it works fine; I don't know how much of a pain it would be to use for a group of people, but as long as everyone has an account they should be able to access files with a link.

    • This looks pretty promising. Do you know if it's possible to add per-share passwords, so that I don't need everyone to open an account?

      Edit: It's not.

      • Unfortunately that doesn't seem possible, afaik. Although you could always create a zip file with a password, and share it with an open link (anyone with the link can download it, no need for account).

  • I just use Syncthing with versioning, and that's how I manage all my files and their versions.

    That alone is a document management and file versioning system without the overkill of Nextcloud (which is debatable).

44 comments