LGM Connect: your NAS on your computer

28 min · 15 sections

LGM Connect is your NAS's own app. It is not a cut-down panel, nor a separate app with four features in it: it is the whole panel, with the same applications and the same Control Panel you see in the browser, and with whatever your account is allowed to open. What you have in the browser you have here, in the same place and looking the same.

What it adds is exactly what a web page cannot do on your computer:

Any NAS user signs in with their usual account, not only whoever administers it. Everyone sees their own things: the app does not hand out permissions, it only shows what the NAS already gives you.

At home you need nothing else. To use it from outside, the NAS needs a door to the outside world, and there are three: the LGM Tunnel address —the one your licence hands out, in Control Panel → External access → LGM Tunnel—, your own domain (see Access from the internet) or a VPN: the NAS's own one, or Tailscale or NetBird if the NAS is in your network on those services. With none of the three the app still works, just only while you are at home.

Installing

Windows

Download it from lgm-os.com → Download, in the "Download LGM Connect" card. The big button is the one for your system; the others are underneath. The installer installs for your user, so it does not ask for your computer's administrator password.

When you open it, Windows shows a blue screen saying "Windows protected your PC". There is nothing wrong with the file: the app is not signed by a recognised authority yet, and Windows warns about everything that is not. To carry on: More info → Run anyway.

The first time you use "Search my home network", Windows may ask whether to let LGM Connect use the network. Say yes for private networks, which is your home Wi-Fi. If you say no, the search will find nothing: you can still add the NAS by typing its address.

Updating

Once a day the app checks whether there is a new version and, if there is, tells you with a notice. It installs nothing on its own: go to System → Update, read what is new and press Install and restart. Before installing it checks that the download is signed by LGM-OS; if it is not, it does not install it and says so.

On Android the app does not come from a store, so it updates from that same screen: Download and install fetches the new APK with the phone's download manager and opens the Android installer, which asks you to confirm with "Update" (what you have saved is kept). The first time, Android may ask you to allow LGM Connect to install apps: turn it on in the setting that opens, come back to the app and tap Open the installer. If the installer does not show up, tap the download in the notifications.

Ubuntu and other Linux

At lgm-os.com → Download, the Linux button downloads an .AppImage file: it is not installed, it is run. Give it permission to run once (right click → Properties → "Allow executing as a program", or chmod +x in a terminal) and open it with a double click. It works on Ubuntu 22.04 or later and on any distribution with an equally recent system library. Folders need GVFS on the system (it comes with GNOME and most desktops); if something is missing, the app says so by name.

Android

The Android button downloads an .apk. The app is not in the store yet, so Android will ask whether you allow installing "from this source": say yes only for that download. Open the app with the phone on your home Wi-Fi and press "Search my home network". Folders as a drive do not exist on the phone (there they live in Files); music, alerts and cameras do. When you close the app completely it will ask for your password again: on the phone it is not kept yet.

macOS

The Mac button downloads a .dmg: open it and drag LGM Connect to Applications, like any other app. It works on Intel and Apple Silicon Macs (one file for both). The app does not carry an Apple signature yet, so the first time macOS will say it cannot verify the developer: close that, open Settings → Privacy & Security and press Open Anyway (or right click on the app → Open). It only happens the first time.

iPhone

Not on the App Store, and not for now: publishing there costs $99 a year. There are two routes, and for most people the first one is the right one:

The first is covered in Install the panel as an app and has no catch; it is also the only one of the two with NAS alerts, because a free Apple ID cannot sign them.

The second — the .ipa with Sideloadly — has its own step-by-step guide, including Apple's app-specific password, the "Trust" step everyone gets stuck on, and what to do when the signature expires after seven days: Installing LGM Connect on iPhone.

Finding your NAS

The first screen asks which NAS you are connecting to. At the top is "Your NAS devices" —the ones you have already added, with "In use" on the one you are on— and below it, three ways to add one. You can have several and switch between them whenever you like.

Search my home network

This is the first thing to try. Your NAS announces itself on the network, so it comes up with its name and you do not need to know any address: press Add and that is it. Both of you have to be on the same network — the same Wi-Fi or the same cable.

If nobody shows up, the app tells you in those very words: check that the NAS is on and on that network, and if not, type its address.

Type the address

One single field. Its IP (192.168.1.50), the computer name, the LGM Tunnel address or the address you use over the VPN all work. You do not need to know which of those yours is: paste whatever you use to open the panel.

Before saving anything, the app checks: it shows the name that machine introduces itself with, its version and its signature. That is what turns "I typed an IP" into "it is my NAS and I recognised it". If nothing answers there, it says so and saves nothing.

I have an invitation

A piece of text somebody sends you over chat that carries the whole NAS: its name and every way of reaching it, the one at home and the ones from outside. It is the route for someone who lives in the house but has installed nothing, and the one that works best from a phone on mobile data or from somebody else's network.

The code starts with LGMC1. Paste it, the app shows you which NAS came out of it and how it is reached, and you sign in.

It carries the ways in that the NAS has switched on when the code is made. If it is published with your own domain, that domain goes in on port 443 —the one every website uses, which is the one the router opens—, not on the panel's. If it is in your Tailscale or NetBird network, that address goes in too, which works from any device with their app connected.

Whoever administers the NAS gets it from Users and groups → "Invite this computer", and copies it with a button. It carries no passwords: only where the machine is and which certificate it presents, so it can be sent through anything. Whoever receives it still needs their own NAS account.

From your lgm-os.com account

It is the same code, for the owner. In your account each NAS has its "Code for LGM Connect": copy it and paste it under "I have an invitation". The "Open my account" button at the bottom of that screen takes you straight there.

That code appears on the website as soon as the NAS reports how it is reached, which it does every twelve hours. If it is not there yet, copy it from the NAS panel as above.

The "NAS signature"

It is the fingerprint of your machine's certificate: its signature. The app saves it the first time and from then on only accepts that exact certificate. If it ever changes without you having touched anything, it does not connect and warns you, instead of signing in to whatever is there.

That is what lets you trust the certificate your NAS signs for itself. A freshly installed NAS may not have its own certificate yet: then you sign in all the same, just without that warning, and the screen tells you so.

Signing in

With your NAS username and password, the usual ones. If your account has a second factor, the app asks for the six-digit code after the password. And if your password has never been used, it makes you change it before going in, exactly like the panel.

"Remember this computer" is ticked by default. Your sign-in is kept in the system keychain —Credential Manager on Windows— and you are not asked for the password again. Untick it on a shared machine: the session then lives only while the app is open and ends when you close it.

• Switch NAS: the button under "Sign in", or the one that takes you back to "Your NAS devices".
• Sign out: the icon in the top right corner, next to your name. It closes the session on the NAS and forgets the sign-in saved on this computer.
• Remove a NAS from the list: the bin on its row. Your saved sign-in here is forgotten; the NAS and what is inside it are not touched.

The home screen: where you left off

As soon as you sign in, and any time you press the logo in the header, the app shows you what you left half-finished, without opening a single screen:

• Keep watching — the movies and episodes you have started, with their cover art and the minute you reached. It is yours: every account sees its own. Tapping one opens Movies.
• Recently played — the last songs that played on this device. Tap one and it plays. The NAS does not keep this list: it is stored here, it never leaves this computer or this phone, and Clear history empties it whenever you want.

A block with nothing to show is not drawn. If you have nothing half-watched and have not listened to anything yet, the home screen is the usual line: "Pick something from the bar to start".

Getting around the app

The applications are laid out in six categories, their names in the logo's blue so they stand out from the screens beneath, and the layout is a home's, not a server's:

On a wide window all six sit open in the left-hand bar. On a narrow one —or on a phone— they move to the bottom bar: you tap a category and a sheet comes up with its screens; if it only has one, you go straight in.

What you open does not close when you switch screens. Going back to Files returns you to the folder you were in, not to the beginning.

What your account does not have appears greyed out, not hidden, with a notice when you press it: "No permission for X: ask whoever administers the NAS". Knowing what is there is part of knowing what you can ask for. Who sees what is decided on the NAS, not here: Users and permissions.

"NAS settings" is the machine's Control Panel, and it only shows up if you administer it or if some of its screens have been shared with you. Below it sits "Alerts", which belongs to this computer and everyone can see.

The window and the tray

The close button hides the window, it does not quit the app: that way notifications keep reaching you and any folders you have connected stay put. The icon next to the clock brings it back with one click, and right-clicking it gives you three things: open it, start with the computer and really quit.

Folders

This is the only screen that does not exist in the browser panel, and it is the one that brings most people to install the app: your NAS folders, opened on this computer as if they were its own. It is in the Files category, first on the list. On a phone it does not appear: there your folders open in Files, taking up no space on the device.

Every folder has two things that look alike but are not the same:

Connect

Press Connect. The first time it asks for your NAS account: it is asked once per computer and kept in the system keychain, not in any file. When it is done, the row says where it ended up ("On this computer: N:\") and an Open button appears, which opens it in your file explorer.

Which route it connects by is decided by the app on its own, looking at which system you are on and whether you are at home or away. There is nothing for you to choose.

• Disconnect takes it off your computer. The files stay on the NAS, untouched.
• At startup makes it open by itself every time you turn the computer on. If the NAS is off, it keeps trying until it is back.

From outside your home the folder is opened over the internet, and for that Windows needs WinFsp and macOS needs macFUSE, installed once. They are free, and the screen itself tells you with the link before even trying. At home neither is needed.

From outside, the folder travels through the same address you use to get into the panel, so there is no extra port to open on the router. All it asks is that the NAS has web access (WebDAV) switched on in Control Panel → Household folders: whoever administers the NAS does it, once.

Your My Drive shows up here too, and from outside it goes the same way: its row in Household folders needs WebDAV switched on and your account needs «Web access to the files». With that, you can also keep it offline, like any other.

"Shared with me" appears in the list as soon as someone at home shares something from their My Drive with you, and it connects like one more drive. It is read-only and does not mix with your My Drive: to change something, open it in Files. It goes over the home network, so it does not connect from outside the house.

Having it offline too

"Sync here" asks you for a folder on this computer and from then on keeps the two level in both directions. The first time can take a while: everything has to come across.

The row tells you how it is going —"Getting ready the first time…", "Syncing", "Up to date 3 min ago", "Stopped: …"— and you get "Sync now" so you do not have to wait and "Stop syncing" to end it (the files stay where they are, on both sides).

If two computers touch the same file without seeing each other, you get "2 with two versions". Nothing is thrown away: both are there, the second one with "conflicto" in its name, and you decide which one counts.

Two things can stop you from starting, and whoever administers the NAS fixes both: that folder not having web access turned on, and nobody in the house syncing it yet — setting it up the first time is an administration job. The screen tells you which of the two it is.

Music

The Music app is the panel's, with three things a browser cannot do.

It keeps playing wherever you go. Put a record on and go to Files, Backups or the settings: a mini player stays at the bottom with what is playing, to pause, skip a song or go back with “Open Music”.

The keyboard keys are in charge. The playback keys (pause, next, previous) and the system media control —the one that shows up when you touch the volume or on the lock screen— drive LGM Connect's music, with its title, artist and cover.

Save on this device. Open an album or a playlist in Music and press “Save on this device”: it is downloaded to this computer and plays even with the NAS off or without signal. Nothing on the NAS is touched. What is saved lives under Media → “Saved music”, with how much it takes and a cap (“At most”); changing the cap deletes nothing. “Remove” deletes it from this device, and the NAS stays as it was. In the browser that button does not exist: it belongs to the app.

Saved films

Media → Saved films, in the app only. It is the same as “Saved music” but with films and episodes: they are downloaded to this device and play on a plane, on a train or at the country house with no signal. Nothing on the NAS is touched.

How to save one. Press “Add a film”, search by title and press “Save on this device”. Series show up separately: you go into one and save the episodes you want. They download one at a time, and you can stop one with “Stop” — whatever had downloaded is thrown away, because half a film is not watchable.

What exactly gets saved. It depends on whether this device can open the NAS's file:

• If it can, the file is saved as it is. That is the fast way.
• If it cannot, the NAS converts it for this device and the conversion is what gets saved. That takes about as long as the film lasts, because it is converted while it downloads: leave the app open and do something else. The screen says so while it happens, and the row then reads “Converted for this device”.

How much fits. Two figures, and both are in charge: the cap you set in “At most” (5, 20, 50 or 100 GB; 20 out of the box) and what is really free on this device, which is also shown. If it does not fit, you are told before it starts instead of filling up your phone. Changing the cap deletes nothing.

Only on Wi-Fi. On out of the box, so four gigabytes do not go out of your data plan. With this off, films also download over mobile data. It only shows up on the phone: on a computer there is no way to know which network you are on, and a switch that stops nothing reads as a promise that later arrives on the bill.

Watching them. Tap one in the list and it opens full screen, with the usual controls: you can seek, skip ahead and go full screen. It remembers where you were, on this device and for you. No NAS and no internet needed.

“Remove” deletes it from this device and frees the space. On the NAS it stays as it was.

Send to the TV

In the app only. With a film, an episode, a video or a song playing, a TV icon appears in the player: press it and the list of devices in your home shows up. Pick one and the film moves to the TV.

What shows up in the list. Any television or receiver with DLNA switched on —which is nearly all of them from the last fifteen years— plus Chromecast and Google TV. They have to be switched on and on the same network as the computer or phone you are sending from: a TV in standby does not answer, and the router's guest network is a different network.

The remote. While something is playing, a bar stays at the bottom with the title, the TV, the position and the pause and back to this device buttons. It is on every screen: you can go to Files or to the cameras and still pause from there. “Back to this device” takes the film off the TV; to carry on watching here, press play.

How the video gets there. The TV does not ask the NAS for it: the app serves it. A television cannot sign in to your NAS or accept its certificate, so while the send lasts LGM Connect opens a temporary address on your home network —with a random key that expires when you stop— and acts as the go-between. That is why the computer or phone doing the sending has to stay switched on and on the network while the film plays.

If the TV cannot handle the format it says so instead of going black. The fix: save the film on this device from “Saved films” —it is saved converted— and send it again.

Phone photos

Media → Phone photos, on the phone only. On a computer this screen does not appear: what it does is copy the phone's gallery, and a computer does not have one.

What it does: the photos you take end up in your NAS folder, sorted by year and month, in My Drive → Phone photos → <your phone>. They are there as your own ordinary files: visible from Files, from the Gallery and from any computer at home, and they go into the NAS backups like everything else.

Three switches and a button:

• Upload new photos by itself. Whatever you take from now on goes up without you doing anything.
• Only on Wi-Fi. So your data plan is not spent. It comes switched on.
• Include videos. Off: one video takes as much room as a hundred photos, and a while to upload.
• Upload the whole gallery. It goes through the whole phone, oldest first. The first time can take a good while: leave the app open while it runs.

The first time, the phone will ask you for permission to read your photos. If you refused and changed your mind, you can grant it in Android Settings → Apps → LGM Connect → Permissions.

What it does NOT do, and is worth knowing:

• With the app closed it uploads too, within limits. With “Upload new photos by itself” on, the phone sends them shortly after you take them —and at most every half hour— when it has a connection (Wi-Fi, if “Only on Wi-Fi” is set) and battery, with no permanent notice in the bar. Anything over 200 MB, such as a long video, waits until you open the app, and uploading the whole gallery is still done with it open. It needs a NAS on 2.15.0 or later and having signed in once with your account: the phone keeps, encrypted, a key that only works for uploading photos, and you can see it —and remove it— in your panel account, under “API keys”, as “Fotos de” followed by the phone's name. Signing out in the app withdraws it. Some phones throttle closed apps to save battery: if it does not upload, take LGM Connect out of “battery optimisation” in the phone's settings.
• It deletes nothing from the phone. It copies; what is on the phone stays on the phone.
• On iPhone, only with the app open. For now the iPhone uploads nothing with the app closed: opening LGM Connect uploads what is new, and while it uploads the whole gallery the screen does not turn off by itself. If you pick "Selected Photos" when granting permission, only those are copied; change it in Settings → Apps → LGM Connect → Photos.
• It is not a mirrored folder. If you delete a photo on the NAS, it does not come back up.

The same photo is never uploaded twice. Not when you upload the whole gallery after having it going by itself, not when you change phone, not when you reinstall the app: before uploading anything, the app asks the NAS about the contents of each file, and whatever is already there does not travel. What can take a while after a reinstall is the first pass, because the whole phone has to be read again in order to ask.

If it stops halfway, the screen says why and keeps saying it until the next time: no room on the NAS, no Wi-Fi with "Only on Wi-Fi" switched on, or the session expired. Once you fix it, it carries on where it left off.

Virtual machines

A virtual machine's screen opens in its own window (the button in the corner of its card): enlarge or maximise it and the machine's screen grows with it. It remembers where you left it, and you can have several machines open at once, each in its window.

And when you create or edit a machine, under the installation image dropdown there is “Import an ISO from this computer”: pick the .iso you already have here —the Windows one, say— and it is copied to the NAS, without going through any network folder. You can see how much has gone up and stop it; meanwhile you can close the dialog, look at something else and come back, and the upload carries on. When it finishes, the image shows up already selected in the dropdown. The same button is in the browser panel (Virtual machines).

Movies, Gallery and the rest of the apps

Every other screen is exactly the panel's: Movies and series, Gallery, Files, Backups, Cameras, Calendar… There are no two versions of anything, so what you learn in one works in the other, and each guide serves both:

• Files · Gallery · Notepad
• Cameras · Backups
• Home services (downloads, calendar, printer, the TV)
• Package Center and containers · [Virtual machines](maquinas-virtuales.md)

Alerts

System → Alerts. Whatever the NAS has to tell you comes out through your computer's notification centre even with the window hidden, which is where it will be nearly all the time. This only works in the installed app: in a browser there is nothing asking the NAS while you are not looking at it.

Two switches:

• Alerts on this device: on or off. It applies to this computer and to nobody else, just like the volume.
• Only the important ones: the ones asking you to look at something — a failing disk, a backup that did not run. The rest stays in the panel's bell.

When you press a notification, the app takes you to where it is: if it is motion on a camera, to Cameras; if not, to the bell, where the alert is written out in full and with its time.

Each alert comes out once only, and the first time you point the app at a NAS that already has history you do not get twenty at once: old news is not news.

Cameras

In Cameras, the "Open in another window" button opens the wall in a real window, with no bars and no menus, so you can leave it in a corner while you work on something else. The window remembers where it was, and if it is already open the button brings it to the front instead of opening a second one.

On a camera's live view, the picture-in-picture button pops the video out into the system's little floating window, which stays on top of everything else.

Both are computer things: they do not appear on a phone.

If something goes wrong

"Cannot reach the NAS"

An amber strip appears at the top and you do not lose what you were looking at. The app keeps checking on its own; "Try again" does it now. Check that the NAS is on and, if you are away from home, that you have a connection.

"The NAS certificate has changed"

The signature saved the first time is no longer the one the machine presents. Two cases, and it is worth telling them apart:

• You have reinstalled the NAS or given it a new certificate: remove it from the list and add it again, preferably from "Search my home network".
• You have touched nothing: somebody may be impersonating it. Do not sign in and find out what happened first.

"No permission for…"

Your account does not have that application. It is not an LGM Connect fault: ask whoever administers the NAS, who hands it out in Control Panel → Users and groups.

A folder will not connect

The app tells you the real reason. The ones that actually come up:

The invitation code is not accepted

• "That is not an invitation code": LGM Connect's start with LGMC1. You have most likely pasted something else.
• "It cannot be read": it got cut while copying. Ask for it again and paste it whole.
• "It was made by a newer NAS version": update LGM Connect and paste it again.

I cannot find the NAS on the network

Check the thing everybody forgets: that you are both on the same network. A computer on a cable and a NAS on another virtual network cannot hear each other. If the search still comes up empty, type the NAS address: the app will find it all the same.

My TV does not show up when I try to send a film

• Make sure it is really on, not in standby: a TV that is off does not answer.
• Make sure you are on the same network. The guest Wi-Fi is a different network, and so is the 5 GHz band on routers that keep them apart.
• Make sure DLNA is on. Nearly every TV ships with it on; look for "DLNA", "DMR" or "content sharing" in its network settings.
• Search again with the button in the sheet: the first search can catch the TV while it is still waking up.

Would you rather not install anything? The panel opens in a browser from any device on the network, and it can be left with its own icon too: Install the panel as an app. And if what you want is the NAS showing up as just another folder without going through LGM Connect, there is Connecting your devices.

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