Since ownCloud 5.0 it is possible to mount external storage providers into ownCloud's virtual file system. To add an external storage backend to your ownCloud head to Settings -> Admin or Personal. As administrator you can mount external storage for any group or user. Users are also allowed to mount external storage for themselves if this setting has been enabled by the administrator.
At first the mount point has to be entered, this is the directory in ownCloud's virtual file system, that the storage will be mounted to. Then the storage backend has to be selected from the list of supported backends. As of writing ownCloud currently supports the following storage backends:
- Local file system (mount local storage that is outside ownCloud's data directory)
- FTP (or FTPS)
- SFTP
- SMB
- WebDAV
- Amazon S3
- Dropbox
- Google Drive
- OpenStack Swift
Please keep in mind, that users are not allowed to mount local file storage for security purposes.
Once a backend has been selected, more configuration fields will appear. The displayed configuration fields may vary depending on the selected storage backend. For example, the FTP storage backend needs the following configuration details to be entered:
- host: the hostname of the ftp server
- user: the username used to login to the ftp server
- password: the password to login to the ftp server
- secure: whether to use ftps:// (FTP over TLS) to connect to the ftp server instead of ftp:// (optional, defaults to false)
- root: the name of the folder inside the ftp server to mount (optional, defaults to ‘/’)
Mounting a Dropbox account requires that you create an app with Dropbox and then provide the app key and secret to the external storage configuration user interface. Go to My apps at Dropbox and create an app. Select Full Dropbox access level. Copy the app key and app secret and paste them into the corresponding fields for the Dropbox storage.
Click the Grant access button and you will be redirected to a Dropbox website to give ownCloud permission to access your account.
Mounting a Google Drive account requires that you create an API project in the Google APIs Console. Select Services and enable both Drive API and Drive SDK. Next select API Access and click Create an OAuth 2.0 client ID. Fill out the Branding Information as you see fit and click Next. In Client Id Settings select Web application for the Application type. Next to Your site or hostname click more options) and add the following to the Authorized Redirect URIs:
Copy the client id and client secret and paste them into the corresponding fields for the Google Drive Storage.
Click the Grant access button and you will be redirected to a Google website to give ownCloud permission to access your account.