DataShare: Migration to Nextcloud
The MPCDF DataShare sync&share service based on the ownCloud product has now been in operation for more than 10 years.
It has been running reliably across multiple major software and hardware changes, hopefully providing value to our users.
Already some time ago, ownCloud was forked into a new product called Nextcloud.
For most of the time, ownCloud and Nextcloud existed in parallel, both occupying specific niches in the market.
However during the last few years, development around ownCloud has slowed significantly,
with the vendor finally announcing its end of life for the end of 2026.
For this reason, the MPCDF DataShare service was migrated to Nextcloud on September 13th and 14th, 2025.
Data, shares, calendars etc. were preserved during the migration, and the general functionality and look&feel remains very similar.
Nevertheless, are some important changes:
New desktop and mobile clients
If you used the ownCloud or branded DataShare client on your device before, you will need to install the Nextcloud client instead in order to continue being able to synchronize your data on that device.
You may re-use the ownCloud data directory on your machine in order to avoid downloading all of the files again, if you ensure that is no longer accessed by the ownCloud client by either uninstalling it, or removing the DataShare account configuration from it.
See also Switching from the ownCloud to the Nextcloud client for a more in depth guide.
Expired accounts will be deleted after 6 months
Expired accounts including all data, shares, calendars etc. associated with them will be deleted after 6 months.
Please make sure to transfer data that should be preserved to another user before your account expires. This will be possible via the Nextcloud web interface after the migration.
Old style “v1” chunking API no longer supported
The old-style “v1” chunking API for uploading large files is no longer supported.
This should only impact a small number of users using old versions of the pocli, pyocclient or similar.
Custom groups converted to Nextcloud Teams
Any ownCloud “custom groups” that you may have created were converted to Nextcloud Teams, also called Circles.
They generally work very similar and can be managed through the new “Contacts” app.
Since there needs to be exactly one owner of a team, this role will be assigned to the first admin of the ownCloud custom group. Any additional admins will be assigned the admin role, and non-privileged members the member role. Only the owner can delete the team or define additional admins, while admins may edit the settings and add/remove members. If the owner’s account expires, another admin is automatically promoted to owner.
Two-factor authentication mandatory
Two-factor authentication (2FA) via MPCDF Login is now mandatory in accordance with general MPG security guidelines.
This is the same Single sign-on (SSO) login that was already introduced for Gitlab earlier this year.
E.g. you should only have to sign in once per day for any of DataShare, Gitlab, or other MPCDF services that will use SSO in the future.
In case you have not set up 2FA in our SelfService for other services such as Gitlab already, you will need to do so before you can login to DataShare.
If you use third-party clients that do not support MFA such as Thunderbird, Apple Calendar etc., you may a create device specific / app password for them in the web interface under Settings - Security and use it in place of your normal MPCDF password:
