folder version management

[Andreas-Kainz]

For files you have a perfect version management which is awesome. The user can replace different versions of a file and the admin can configure how many versions of an file will be stored.

It would be awesome to have this version management also for folders. As all files inside a folder has already the version available you wouldn't get additional storage space, but the possibility to restore how the folder was looked before the last download where one user remove a lot of files in different folders cause of a mistake.

With this functionality you get something like a timeline backup. I know nextcloud isn't a backup software but the server store the deleted files in the trash of the user how delete the files and the file version of the documents in the version management so in general everything should be available on the server side.

Our biggest problem in our company is that the users think that it's quite easy to "destroy" the storage cause of conflicted files, the sync client, other users. The good thing is that it's not to difficult to find out what's happen with the files cause the change was logged but restore a folder to a specific time (yesterday, last week, ...) like you can do it with files would be awesome.

[ghost]

This would also help when applications like Pages or Numbers that create files as folders.

[biva]

It would also help when applications like Microsoft Photos suddenly decides to modify all the pictures, adding meta data on them.
<rdf:Description xmlns:MicrosoftPhoto="http://ns.microsoft.com/photo/1.0/"><MicrosoftPhoto:DateAcquired>

[Britz]

Since I got a thumbs down, I probably should explain in a slightly more detailed fashion, why I think this is highly required.

When you or especially someone else changes a file wrongly, versions are great to restore a proper state and save your live. But this is not true, if the file is deleted. This is especially true, if you share folders with a group of people — either with an extra account for sharing or via group folders — and someone else deletes a file, then you have no option to restore it, since the file is only in the trash of the person how deleted it and the owner of the folder (which is no-one when using group folders).

If you then need the file some time later and than realize that it is gone, it's a pane in the ass to figure out, who deleted the file so that it can be restored from trash. Figuring out the responsible person, for me, most of the time is asking every one, since the other option would be searching the activity app which is just not powerful enough in filtering to do the trick and according to your role, you probably don't even see who deletes stuff. And even if you are the share host, restoring files from trash is also not really convenient, since the trash is not really hierarchical.

This simplest workaround I found is, in case you know the exact name of the file, just create an empty file with the same name, go to version and restore the previous version. Surprisingly, this works most of the time, even if you don't have access to the corresponding trash.

When using nextCloud with non-IT experts and people who are used to dropbox-sharing, it constantly happens, that they just delete files on their disks, because they need space, they are not interested in it, or what ever weird reason and they just do not realise, that the file will also be deleted in the cloud and for every one else.

So with folder versions, you should see a history of the files and subfolders in a folder and easily find the deleted file to restore it. So to say, a folder content specific activity view with included restore options. This would make live so much easier when working with groups in nextCloud.

[Andreas-Kainz]

The main reason we can't replace samba shares with nextcloud was that some users delete folders local cause they need disk space. And now I have stupid samba shares instead of an universal cloud solution.

[TristanCottam]

How about implementing this through Git?

In a more distant future, this could lead the way to adding the ability of hosting Git repositories directly on Nextcloud, integrating Git deeply into Nextcloud and bringing together all of their best features.