Files

Everything the NAS stores, from the browser: moving through folders, uploading and downloading, looking at a photo or a contract without downloading it, sharing with people who have no account and getting deleted things back. The Files app is the web view; for day-to-day work from your PC the comfortable way is still the network folder of a lifetime (SMB sharing) — and both see the same thing, recycle bin included.

Moving around and organising

• At the top are your shared folders — yours: each account sees its own, not other people's. If you have clouds connected or folders from other machines mounted, they show up there too, by name, only while they are actually connected.
• The folders you use daily can be pinned to the sidebar (right-click menu → "Pin to the sidebar") and stay one click away.
• Creating folders and files, renaming, cutting, copying and pasting work like in any file explorer, shortcuts included (Ctrl+C/X/V, F2, Del). Copying or moving lots of things runs as a panel task: you can close the window and it carries on.
• Compress turns a selection into a ZIP right there; "Extract here" opens one. Both run as tasks with progress: compressing a 100 GB folder freezes nothing.

Uploading and downloading

Drag files —or whole folders— onto the window, or use the Upload button. Each upload shows its progress; whatever fails to upload is named, with the reason. Downloading is the double click (or the preview's Download button); a folder downloads as a ZIP.

The preview

Double-clicking a file shows it, without downloading it and without opening anything else:

• Photos: with rotate, zoom and full screen. To see them with the whole library — timeline, albums, favourites — there is "Open in Gallery" in the menu, and the Gallery guide.
• Video and audio: they play right there. A format the browser cannot play shows the download button instead of a silent error.
• PDF: whole, in the window itself.
• Office documents (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and the open formats): the NAS converts them to PDF and shows that — read only, the original is not even touched. To edit them in the browser there is the Documents editor; the preview's "Edit" button takes you there.
• Notes and text: a .md file shows up composed —headings, lists, bold— with the same view as the Notepad, and a button opens it there for editing. Other text files (.txt, .log, .json…) show as they are.

Search

The box at the top searches by name in the folder you are in and its subfolders — and it is instant: the NAS keeps a name index that updates itself, so searching a NAS with a million files answers complete and on the spot. With no folder picked it searches all your folders (only yours: search respects what each account sees).

"Search inside the files" also looks into the content of text files: notes, configurations, code, lists. Results can be opened, renamed or deleted right there, no hunting for the folder.

Sharing

Give access to another account

Right-click a folder → "Give access to another NAS account": pick the account and whether it can view only or view and edit. It will show up in their panel — and the permission also rules over SMB and WebDAV, which is where everyone actually works. Removing access is the same menu.

A download link

To hand something to someone without an account: right-click → share by link. The link downloads that file (or that folder, as a ZIP) for whoever holds it — and nothing else: they do not see the rest of the NAS.

• Optional expiry: the link dies on its own when it is due.
• Optional password, so you can send the link through one channel and the key through another.
• The panel keeps each link's download count, and revoking it is one click.

Request files

The other way round: having things sent to you. Right-click a folder → "Request files here…" creates a link that shows the other person an upload page with no account and no view of your NAS: whatever they upload lands in that folder, without overwriting anything already there, and you get a notification on arrival. With expiry (a day, a week, a month), an optional password and a size cap. A folder's active requests are visible — how many files have arrived — and revocable from the same menu.

The recycle bin

Deleting sends to that shared folder's Recycle bin, and it is the same bin no matter where you delete from: what you remove from the PC through the network folder lands in the same place. From the bin you restore to the original location or empty it for good.

• Permanent delete, skipping the bin: Shift+Del, and it asks.
• The bin cleans itself up over time, and its size counts as used space until then: if the volume is running tight, emptying it is the first place to look.

Versions

If the NAS takes snapshots of the volume, every file carries its history: right-click → Versions shows the copies the snapshots kept, dated, and restoring one is a click — a whole folder too, which comes back as a task. Without scheduled snapshots there are no versions: the screen says so and points you to turning them on.

From a Windows PC, those same versions appear under the network folder's "Previous versions": that is covered in Watching over and defending the data.

Notes

"New note" creates a Markdown file in the folder you are in and opens it in the Notepad to write on the spot. Markdown on purpose: such a note reads nicely —headings, lists, checkboxes— and is still a plain text file that opens from any machine, over SMB or from the phone.