.. _webdavindex:
==========
Basic APIs
==========
This document provides a quick overview of the WebDAV operations supported in Nextcloud, to keep things readable it won't go into many details
for each operation, further information for each operation can be found in the corresponding rfc where applicable
WebDAV basics
-------------
The base url for all WebDAV operations for a Nextcloud instance is :code:`/remote.php/dav`.
All requests need to provide authentication information, either as a Basic Auth header or by passing a set of valid session cookies.
If your Nextcloud installation uses an external auth provider (such as an OIDC server) you may have to create an app password. To do that browse to your user Settings > Security and create one. It will provide a username and password which you can use within the Basic Auth header.
Testing requests with curl
--------------------------
All WebDAV requests can be easily tested out using :code:`curl` by specifying the request method (:code:`GET`, :code:`PROPFIND`, :code:`PUT`, etc) and setting a request body where needed.
For example: you can perform a :code:`PROPFIND` request to find files in a folder using
.. code-block:: bash
curl -u username:password 'https://cloud.example.com/remote.php/dav/files/username/folder' -X PROPFIND --data '
'
Listing folders (rfc4918_)
--------------------------
The contents of a folder can be listed by sending a :code:`PROPFIND` request to the folder.
.. code::
PROPFIND remote.php/dav/files/user/path/to/folder
Requesting properties
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
By default, a :code:`PROPFIND` request will only return a small number of properties for each file: last modified date, file size, whether it's a folder, etag and mime type.
You can request additional properties by sending a request body with the :code:`PROPFIND` request that lists all requested properties.
.. code-block:: xml
The following properties are supported:
- :code:`{DAV:}getlastmodified`
- :code:`{DAV:}getetag`
- :code:`{DAV:}getcontenttype`
- :code:`{DAV:}resourcetype`
- :code:`{DAV:}getcontentlength`
- :code:`{http://owncloud.org/ns}id` The fileid namespaced by the instance id, globally unique
- :code:`{http://owncloud.org/ns}fileid` The unique id for the file within the instance
- :code:`{http://owncloud.org/ns}favorite`
- :code:`{http://owncloud.org/ns}comments-href`
- :code:`{http://owncloud.org/ns}comments-count`
- :code:`{http://owncloud.org/ns}comments-unread`
- :code:`{http://owncloud.org/ns}owner-id` The user id of the owner of a shared file
- :code:`{http://owncloud.org/ns}owner-display-name` The display name of the owner of a shared file
- :code:`{http://owncloud.org/ns}share-types`
- :code:`{http://owncloud.org/ns}checksums`
- :code:`{http://nextcloud.org/ns}has-preview`
- :code:`{http://owncloud.org/ns}size` Unlike :code:`getcontentlength`, this property also works for folders reporting the size of everything in the folder.
- :code:`{http://nextcloud.org/ns}rich-workspace` this property is provided by the text app
- :code:`{http://nextcloud.org/ns}contained-folder-count` The number of folders directly contained in the folder (not recursively)
- :code:`{http://nextcloud.org/ns}contained-file-count` The number of files directly contained in the folder (not recursively)
Getting properties for just the folder
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
You can request properties of a folder without also getting the folder contents by adding a :code:`Depth: 0` header to the request.
Downloading files
-----------------
A file can be downloaded by sending a :code:`GET` request to the WebDAV url of the file.
.. code::
GET remote.php/dav/files/user/path/to/file
Uploading files
---------------
A file can be uploading by sending a :code:`PUT` request to the file and sending the raw file contents as the request body.
.. code::
PUT remote.php/dav/files/user/path/to/file
Any existing file will be overwritten by the request.
Creating folders (rfc4918_)
---------------------------
A folder can be created by sending a :code:`MKCOL` request to the folder.
.. code::
MKCOL remote.php/dav/files/user/path/to/new/folder
Deleting files and folders (rfc4918_)
-------------------------------------
A file or folder can be deleted by sending a :code:`DELETE` request to the file or folder.
.. code::
DELETE remote.php/dav/files/user/path/to/file
When deleting a folder, it's contents will be deleted recursively.
Moving files and folders (rfc4918_)
-----------------------------------
A file or folder can be moved by sending a :code:`MOVE` request to the file or folder and specifying the destination in the :code:`Destination` header as full url.
.. code::
MOVE remote.php/dav/files/user/path/to/file
Destination: https://cloud.example/remote.php/dav/files/user/new/location
The overwrite behavior of the move can be controlled by setting the :code:`Overwrite` head to :code:`T` or :code:`F` to enable or disable overwriting respectively.
Copying files and folders (rfc4918_)
------------------------------------
A file or folder can be copied by sending a :code:`COPY` request to the file or folder and specifying the destination in the :code:`Destination` header as full url.
.. code::
COPY remote.php/dav/files/user/path/to/file
Destination: https://cloud.example/remote.php/dav/files/user/new/location
The overwrite behavior of the copy can be controlled by setting the :code:`Overwrite` head to :code:`T` or :code:`F` to enable or disable overwriting respectively.
Settings favorites
------------------
A file or folder can be marked as favorite by sending a :code:`PROPPATCH` request to the file or folder and setting the :code:`oc-favorite` property
.. code-block:: xml
PROPPATCH remote.php/dav/files/user/path/to/file
1
Setting the :code:`oc:favorite` property to 1 marks a file as favorite, setting it to 0 un-marks it as favorite.
Listing favorites
-----------------
Favorites for a user can be retrieved by sending a :code:`REPORT` request and specifying :code:`oc:favorite` as a filter
.. code-block:: xml
REPORT remote.php/dav/files/user/path/to/folder
1
File properties can be requested by adding a :code:`` element to the request listing the requested properties in the same way as it would be done for a :code:`PROPFIND` request.
When listing favorites, the request will find all favorites in the folder recursively, all favorites for a user can be found by sending the request to :code:`remote.php/dav/files/user`
.. _rfc4918: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4918