“File Drop” where each uploader only sees their own uploaded files

[SolunaCG]

Hi everyone 👋

I’m not entirely sure if this feature already exists or is planned — feel free to re-tag this discussion as a feature request or user story if appropriate. Since it might be a new concept, I’m posting it here under Ideas.

🎯 The use case

To illustrate this clearly, here’s a real-world example from my own university:
During exam submissions, each student uploaded their work via a shared link. They could later re-upload an updated version until the submission deadline, but only the professor or exam staff could view all submissions. Our university used a custom in-house system for this, but the concept fits perfectly here — ensuring privacy and control for students while maintaining centralized oversight for the instructor.

Imagine a public “File Drop” link that’s shared with many people (e.g. wedding guests or students submitting work).Everyone should be able to upload their own files without seeing or editing uploads from others, but still be able to view, replace, or update their own uploads until a deadline (if one is set).

So the requirements are:

• Anonymous upload (no account required)
• Each uploader can later see and manage only their own uploads
• The host (owner of the folder) can see and manage all uploads
• Optionally, uploads can be replaced or updated by the same uploader until a cutoff date

This differs from the regular “Upload only” share,because in the classic file drop, all uploads go into one shared folder,and the system doesn’t distinguish between individual uploaders or allow later access for them.

⚙️ Background context

Originally, systems like Nextcloud were explored to see if such functionality existed. However, Nextcloud’s file drop feature is completely anonymous — the link acts like a single shared identity (/s/xyz123) and provides no per-uploader visibility or control. All files go into one shared bucket, and guests can’t see or update what they uploaded afterwards.

This mention is purely to highlight that even established solutions don’t offer this capability yet, which underlines why OpenCloud could stand out by implementing it.

💡 Why this would be useful

• Weddings / Events: guests upload their photos privately, and can later re-upload or remove their own files
• Schools / Universities: students submit assignments before a deadline and can update them until the due date, while only the teacher/professor can see all
• Client portals: customers upload documents without seeing others, but can replace their own submissions
• Contests / submissions: each participant can check or adjust their entry later

It’s a surprisingly common real-world scenario,and OpenCloud already feels like the perfect platform to finally solve it.

🧩 Non‑prescriptive notes (from a user’s perspective)

I’m not a core developer, so please treat the following as high‑level, non‑binding ideas. Implementation details are entirely up to the team.

• The desired user experience: one public entry point for many people where each person can later see/manage only their own uploads (optionally until a deadline), while the host can see everything.
• If strict anonymity is difficult, a per‑uploader private return link (shown after upload or delivered out‑of‑band) would also work to let people revisit their own files.
• An optional deadline / edit window would cover submission scenarios (e.g., university assignments) nicely.
• If the best current workaround is “unique upload links per person”, I’d appreciate brief guidance on how to set that up today.

(Happy to provide more context as an end user. I’ll gladly leave all design/implementation choices to the maintainers.)

🙏 Question

Is something like this already supported or planned on the roadmap?If not, I’d love to file it as a formal feature request — this could make OpenCloud uniquely strong in real-world group submission and event scenarios.

Thanks a lot for all your amazing work!OpenCloud has already solved many of the architectural limitations that made projects like Nextcloud so hard to extend.

Best regards

[micbar]

@SolunaCG

Anonymous upload (no account required)
Each uploader can later see and manage only their own uploads
The host (owner of the folder) can see and manage all uploads
Optionally, uploads can be replaced or updated by the same uploader until a cutoff date

That is a bit contradicting. How should we map anoymous uploaders to their uploaded files? In order to do that, we would need an authenticated context. If we don't have that, we cannot distinguish one uploader from the others.

[SolunaCG]

@micbar

Thanks a lot for the clarification — that makes perfect sense! 🙏

I’m absolutely not a developer or expert, I just wanted to ask out of curiosity whether something like this might be technically possible in principle.

The idea came from real situations I’ve had when hosting cloud uploads for two weddings. In both cases, the bride and groom asked for a simple way for all guests to upload their photos and videos through a public link. They wanted to be able to see all of the uploaded files afterwards — but at the same time, each guest should only be able to see and manage their own uploads. This request came from the wish of the bride and groom to first review and sort through all uploads themselves before giving other guests access to the full collection, so that any unflattering or awkward photos could be removed in advance.

Especially during multi-day weddings, some guests asked if they could later revisit the upload page to maybe remove or replace a photo or video they didn’t like (“I look terrible in that one!” 😅).

Back then, I couldn’t tell them if that was technically possible, or why it didn’t seem to work in Nextcloud — and now that I’m using OpenCloud, I thought I’d ask again if such a scenario could ever be supported in some form.

I completely understand that this might not fit OpenCloud’s current model or priorities. I just wanted to understand whether a concept like that could in principle work — for instance, perhaps by using a small session cookie or temporary browser session — or if it’s something that could possibly be considered in the future.

Thanks again for taking the time to explain — I really appreciate your openness and the great work you’re doing with this project! 😊

[sorentorp]

I would like to go into further investegation to this matter.

We are a potential School-customer, and the need for an alternative to Google Classroom is crutial. The teacher needs to be able to distribute a template to the students (read-only) and the students need to be able to turn in their assignments.

This is actually not far from the File Drop functionality.

Please reach out if you want to dig deeper into it.

[tbsbdr]

reach out :D
could you please describe how this template would look like - is it a docx worksheet that was turned into a fillable PDF which should then be returned or would it be something like a "google forms"?

[sorentorp]

I tried to DM you on LinkedIn to set up a call, but you haven't accepted 😀

[tbsbdr]

could you try again please? I'm https://www.linkedin.com/in/tbaader/

[SolunaCG]

Just to clarify a bit: my original post might have been slightly misleading because I mentioned the school example. That was only meant as an analogy — my main use cases were the wedding scenarios I've set up using Nextcloud in the past, where this feature was always requested by the bride and groom.

The idea with the school setting was only to show that a similar concept could exist there as well (for example, students continuing to access, edit, or delete their own submissions from the same browser using a session cookie or something similar). But my primary goal was really the event use case: guests uploading photos and videos (or other files) through a public link (usually via QR codes on tables), being able to see only their own uploads, and optionally deleting or replacing them if needed.

Just to describe this again more clearly (tagging @sorentorp and @tbsbdr since it’s somewhat related but from a different perspective):

Here’s how I imagine it would work from a user’s point of view:

1. A guest scans the QR code for the first time → the browser gets a small session or persistent cookie (like uploader_id = 84f2e9a3c1b).
2. The guest uploads their photos and videos (or other files); the system stores them under that ID.
3. Later that day (or even the next day), the same guest scans the same QR code again with the same phone → the cookie is still there, so the server recognizes them and shows only their own uploads.
4. They can optionally delete or replace a photo or video they no longer want to share.
5. The host (bride and groom) can see all uploads from everyone.

This would make it very simple for large groups of people to contribute photos and videos (or other files) without accounts, while still keeping uploads separate per guest.

If the idea is clear enough now, I’d be happy to open it later as a formal feature request — I mainly wanted to use this discussion to clarify whether it’s generally feasible or maybe already planned.

Sorry if my original post caused any confusion — I’m not a developer and might have mixed a few ideas when I first described it. I just wanted to make sure the concept itself is clear now. 😊