Description

strychni0x Media Bridge for Nextcloud adds a “Nextcloud” tab to the WordPress media modal
(the “Add Media” dialog). From there an administrator can browse the folders of
a configured Nextcloud account, preview the file names and import images into
the WordPress media library with a single click.

Imported images become regular WordPress attachments (a copy is downloaded from
Nextcloud), so they work with every theme, block and page builder without any
further integration.

Features

Adds a dedicated “Nextcloud” tab to the media modal.
Adds an “Import from Nextcloud” button to the Media Library and the
“Add New Media File” screen, opening the browser in its own dialog.
Browse Nextcloud folders via WebDAV.
Thumbnail previews with a selectable source: use the Nextcloud preview
endpoint (default), or have WordPress generate and cache the thumbnails itself
(useful when your Nextcloud server has preview generation disabled).
Paginated image listing for folders with many photos.
Import images as standard WordPress attachments – one at a time or several at
once via multi-select.
Access restricted to administrators (the manage_options capability).
Connection test on the settings screen.

Access control

Every part of the plugin – the settings screen, the REST endpoints and the
JavaScript that renders the Nextcloud tab – requires the manage_options
capability. Non-administrators never receive the script and cannot call the
REST endpoints. The required capability can be changed with the
ncmb_required_capability filter.

External services

This plugin connects to a Nextcloud server that you configure on the plugin
settings screen. It is not a third-party hosted service operated by the plugin
author; you point it at your own (or your organisation’s) Nextcloud instance.

What is sent, and when:

When an administrator opens the “Nextcloud” tab or clicks the connection test,
the plugin sends a WebDAV PROPFIND request to the configured Nextcloud URL
to list folder contents. The request includes the configured username and
app password as an HTTP Basic authentication header.
When the “Nextcloud” tab shows images, the plugin requests a thumbnail for
each image from the Nextcloud preview endpoint
(/index.php/core/preview, authenticated) and proxies it to the browser. If
that endpoint returns no preview, the plugin downloads the image via WebDAV
once, generates a thumbnail on the WordPress server and caches it.
When an administrator imports an image, the plugin sends a WebDAV GET
request (again authenticated) to download that single file.

No data is sent anywhere other than the Nextcloud URL you configure. All
requests originate from your WordPress server, not from the visitor’s browser.

The data handling of that Nextcloud instance is governed by its own operator.
Please refer to the documentation and privacy policy of your Nextcloud provider:

Nextcloud: https://nextcloud.com/ – Privacy: https://nextcloud.com/privacy/

Installation

Upload the strychni0x-media-bridge-for-nextcloud folder to /wp-content/plugins/.
Activate the plugin through the “Plugins” menu in WordPress.
In Nextcloud go to Settings Security “Create new app password” and copy
the generated password.
In WordPress go to Settings Nextcloud Media and enter the Nextcloud URL,
the username, the app password and (optionally) a start folder. Click
“Check connection” to verify.
Open the “Add Media” dialog in the editor or media library; a new
“Nextcloud” tab is now available.

FAQ

Are the images copied or referenced?

Copied. When you import an image it is downloaded from Nextcloud and stored as a
regular WordPress attachment. There is no live link back to Nextcloud after the
import.

The thumbnails stay grey – what can I do?

Some Nextcloud servers do not generate image previews. In that case the default
“from Nextcloud” mode has nothing to show. Go to Settings Nextcloud Media and
switch “Thumbnails” to “generate in WordPress”; WordPress will then download each
image once, build a cached thumbnail and display it.

Who can use the Nextcloud tab?

Only administrators (users with the manage_options capability). You can change
the required capability with the ncmb_required_capability filter.

Is my Nextcloud password safe?

Use an app password (Settings Security in Nextcloud), never your real login
password, so you can revoke it at any time. The credentials are used only on the
server to authenticate WebDAV requests and are never exposed to the browser.

The app password is stored encrypted in the database (libsodium, or OpenSSL with
an HMAC as a fallback). The encryption key is derived from your WordPress salts
by default. For stronger separation you may define your own key in wp-config.php:

define( 'NCMB_ENCRYPTION_KEY', 'a-long-random-string' );

Note: if you change that constant (or your WordPress salts) later, the stored
password can no longer be decrypted and must be re-entered on the settings
screen.

Reviews

There are no reviews for this plugin.

Contributors & Developers

“strychni0x Media Bridge for Nextcloud” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

strychni0x

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Interested in development?

Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.

Changelog

1.0.0

First public release.

0.9.0

Added “Select whole folder”: selects every image in the current folder across
all pages in one click, ready to import via “Import selection”.

0.8.0

Multi-select now persists across pages: ticked images stay selected when you
page through a folder, and “Import selection” imports them all. “Select page”
adds the current page; “Clear selection” clears everything.

0.7.0

Added an “Import from Nextcloud” button to the Media Library grid and the
“Add New Media File” screen. It opens the Nextcloud browser in a standalone
dialog, so you can import without going through a post or the block editor.

0.6.0

Added multi-select: tick several images and import them all at once with a
per-image progress indicator. Imports run sequentially to avoid timeouts on
large photos.

0.5.3

Plugin Check compliance: updated “Tested up to” and removed the unused
“Domain Path” header.

0.5.2

Fixed a fatal error (HTTP 500) when generating thumbnails in WordPress: the
required wp-admin file was not loaded in the REST context.
Raised the memory limit before processing images and wrapped image handling in
error handling, so importing/generating from large photos fails with a clear
message instead of a blank 500 where possible.

0.5.1

Added a setting to choose the thumbnail source: “from Nextcloud” (default,
uses the preview endpoint) or “generate in WordPress”. The download/resize
fallback now only runs when explicitly selected.

0.5.0

Thumbnails now have a fallback: when the Nextcloud server provides no preview,
the plugin downloads the image once, creates a thumbnail in WordPress and
caches it (with an unguessable filename and a configurable size limit via the
ncmb_max_thumb_bytes filter). The cache is removed on uninstall.

0.4.1

Fixed: the Nextcloud tab is now registered as a top router tab (next to
“Media Library”) instead of a left-hand menu item, so it shows up in every
media modal – including the Featured Image dialog, which has no left menu.
Improved post-import behaviour so the imported image is selected in dialogs
that have no dedicated insert state (e.g. Featured Image).

0.4.0

Added pagination to the Nextcloud tab so folders with many images load in
pages instead of all at once. The full folder listing is cached briefly on the
server so paging does not trigger repeated requests to Nextcloud.

0.3.0

The Nextcloud app password is now stored encrypted at rest (libsodium, with an
OpenSSL+HMAC fallback). Existing plaintext passwords are read transparently and
re-encrypted on the next save. Optional NCMB_ENCRYPTION_KEY constant for a
dedicated key.

0.2.0

Added thumbnail previews in the Nextcloud tab, proxied from the Nextcloud
preview endpoint so credentials stay on the server. Graceful fallback when no
preview is available.

0.1.0

Initial release: Nextcloud tab in the media modal, folder browsing via WebDAV,
image import into the media library, administrator-only access.