feat: Add option to disable CloudProviders sidebar integration by eriolloan · Pull Request #9233 · nextcloud/desktop

eriolloan · 2025-12-11T18:03:45Z

Summary

Adds a new user setting to optionally disable CloudProviders D-Bus integration on Linux, allowing users to hide synchronized folders from the file manager sidebar while keeping sync functionality intact.

Changes

Adds checkbox in Settings → General: "Show synchronized folders in file manager sidebar"
Default: enabled (maintains current behavior)
When disabled: CloudProviders integration is not initialized
Linux-only feature (CloudProviders is Linux-specific via libcloudproviders)

Implementation details

New config setting: showCloudProvidersInFileManager (defaults to true)
UI checkbox only visible on Linux builds (#ifndef Q_OS_LINUX)
Early return in CloudProviderManager constructor when disabled
Requires application restart to take effect (CloudProviders initialized at startup)

Testing

Checkbox appears in General Settings (Linux only)
Default is enabled
Disabling + restart removes folders from Nautilus sidebar
Re-enabling + restart restores folders
Sync functionality works in both states

Screenshot

Related issues

Fixes #1982

Adds a new setting in General preferences to control whether synchronized folders appear in the file manager sidebar via CloudProviders on Linux. Changes: - Add 'showCloudProvidersInFileManager' config setting (defaults to true) - Add checkbox in General Settings UI (Linux only) - Check setting during CloudProviderManager initialization - Skip DBus registration when disabled The setting requires application restart to take effect. Signed-off-by: eriolloan <15250783+eriolloan@users.noreply.github.com>

camilasan · 2025-12-15T16:08:35Z

src/gui/cloudproviders/cloudprovidermanager.cpp

+    OCC::ConfigFile cfg;
+    if (!cfg.showCloudProvidersInFileManager()) {
+        qCInfo(lcNextcloudCloudProviderIntegration) << "CloudProviders disabled by user setting";
+        return;
+    }
+


I think it makes more sense to move this logic to application.cpp, do the check before calling ownCloudGui::setupCloudProviders:

desktop/src/gui/application.cpp

Line 408 in a514416

_gui->setupCloudProviders();

camilasan · 2025-12-15T16:19:49Z

src/gui/generalsettings.cpp

+void GeneralSettings::slotToggleCloudProviders(bool checked)
+{
+    ConfigFile cfgFile;
+    cfgFile.setShowCloudProvidersInFileManager(checked);


beyond changing the config file, you need to call here ownCloudGui::setupCloudProviders (I could be wrong, maybe another function), so the change will take effect without restarting the client.

Thanks I'll look into it tomorrow

Moves the setting check from CloudProviderManager constructor to Application startup, following the suggestion to check before calling setupCloudProviders rather than inside the manager itself. This keeps the initialization logic cleaner and more consistent with how other optional components are handled. Signed-off-by: eriolloan <15250783+eriolloan@users.noreply.github.com>

eriolloan · 2025-12-15T17:45:54Z

Thanks for the review! I've moved the check to application.cpp.

Regarding making the toggle take effect without restart - I looked into this and ran into a few complications. Tell me if I'm mistaken but it looks like :

setupCloudProviders() creates the manager with new CloudProviderManager(this) but doesn't store the pointer anywhere
To dynamically enable/disable, we'd need to store _cloudProviderManager in ownCloudGui and implement a cleanup method
More importantly, the manager registers with DBus (g_bus_own_name) during construction, and I'm not sure if simply destroying the object would properly unregister from DBus or if we'd need explicit cleanup

Is keeping the restart requirement acceptable for now? The tooltip does mention it's needed.
But i can look into what modifications would be needed.

camilasan · 2025-12-16T11:11:20Z

Thanks for the review! I've moved the check to application.cpp.

Thanks for the PR.

We discussed your changes in the team and I am afraid I didn't realize the implications of your changes when I first reviewed it.

So we would like to propose the following:

remove the UI option: we think this new setting is very niche, most people will still use the default to enable the cloud providers. Keep it only in the config file.
- for this I would suggest to also update the documentation so people will know it exists.

Regarding making the toggle take effect without restart - I looked into this and ran into a few complications. Tell me if I'm mistaken but it looks like :

setupCloudProviders() creates the manager with new CloudProviderManager(this) but doesn't store the pointer anywhere

I think you can leave this as it is now.

To dynamically enable/disable, we'd need to store _cloudProviderManager in ownCloudGui and implement a cleanup method

More importantly, the manager registers with DBus (g_bus_own_name) during construction, and I'm not sure if simply destroying the object would properly unregister from DBus or if we'd need explicit cleanup

Given that now it would require to change the config file by hand, then items 2 and 3 are not a concern anymore.

I hope this proposal is OK with you :)

eriolloan · 2025-12-18T12:36:26Z

Thanks for discussing this with the team! I'm happy to make the changes you suggest.

Before I do though, I'd like to share some context on why I thought a UI option would be valuable:

The problem affects several user groups:

Users with multiple sync folders - the sidebar gets cluttered with many items, pushing devices and network mounts and other bookmarks down in Nautilus (sometimes requiring scrolling)
Users who already bookmarked their folders - CloudProviders creates duplicates of folders they manually added to bookmarks
Users on immutable distributions (like Fedora Silverblue/Kinoite, NixOS, etc.) - they can't easily edit the .desktop file workaround that some users recommend (example)
Non-technical users - editing config files isn't intuitive for everyone

There are existing reports of this issue: issue #3361 (from 2021, still open) and I found myself in a combination of some of these situations, prompting the PR.

That said, I fully understand the concern about UI clutter for a niche feature.
Si if you prefer to keep it config-only with some documentation, I'm totally fine with that! Just wanted to make sure the use cases were clear. Let me know what you'd like me to do and I'll update the PR accordingly.

github-actions · 2025-12-26T02:17:18Z

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mgallien

@eriolloan did you try bringing the point to the nautilus or other file managers using libcloudproviders to allow hiding the entries you do not want
I think you are trying to solve the issue at the wrong level

Remove UI checkbox from General Settings. Use showCloudProvidersInFileManager config file setting instead.

eriolloan · 2026-01-28T21:17:47Z

I updated the MR based on feedback.

The CloudProviders setting is now config-only (removed from UI), keeping it accessible for advanced users who need it.

You're probably right about the level where it should be implemented. So I've also started a discussion on GNOME Discourse about per-entry visibility controls for CloudProviders in Nautilus. If this gets somewhere, it could eventually allow users to selectively hide individual cloud provider entries directly in their file manager – making this global setting unnecessary in the long term. In the meantime, thanks for considering addressing this issue.

Also, I noticed this comment in the issue mentioning adding a config flag in the command line. Is this something I should work on?

Imberflur · 2026-01-29T17:35:03Z

Does this fix the issue of the integration causing the nextcloud client to automatically be started? See #2622

eriolloan · 2026-01-29T19:46:35Z

Hi @Imberflur,
this might address your issue.

If you want to confirm this you can compile from my branch: https://github.com/eriolloan/desktop/tree/feature/optional-cloudproviders-sidebar

Imberflur · 2026-01-30T12:04:54Z

Unfortunately, I'm not using nextcloud right now so it would be difficult to test myself. I just remember this being a major issue for me.

mgallien · 2026-02-04T11:59:23Z

@eriolloan can you have a try at fixing the failing DCO check ?

eriolloan · 2026-02-04T12:01:27Z

Sure thing. I'll try to look at it this week.

eriolloan requested review from Aiiaiiio, camilasan, i2h3, mgallien and nilsding as code owners December 11, 2025 18:03

eriolloan force-pushed the feature/optional-cloudproviders-sidebar branch from 3d821a7 to cc8a441 Compare December 11, 2025 18:40

camilasan requested changes Dec 15, 2025

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camilasan reviewed Dec 15, 2025

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i2h3 added the os: 🐧 Linux label Dec 17, 2025

github-actions bot added the feedback-requested label Dec 26, 2025

mgallien requested changes Jan 21, 2026

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refactor: Make CloudProviders setting config-only

4fd4f4e

Remove UI checkbox from General Settings. Use showCloudProvidersInFileManager config file setting instead.

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eriolloan commented Dec 11, 2025 •

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