Migrate Between Nextcloud and OwnCloud What Moves and What Does Not
Files move easily - users, shares and app data do not. The honest migration map between Nextcloud and ownCloud in both directions, with the practical route in the right order.
By Technical AnshuLinux ServerSelf HostedSwitching
Watch the full video - and read this page before you promise anyone a painless switch
Good news first: switching between Nextcloud and ownCloud is possible, and your files - the thing that actually matters - travel well. Now the honest part: almost everything wrapped around the files does not travel, and pretending otherwise is how migrations turn into a bad weekend. Here is the real map.
The migration map - what crosses and what stays
Files and folder structuremoves - sync or WebDAV transfer
Users and passwordsdoes not move - accounts are recreated
Share links and permissionsdoes not move - re-shared by hand
Calendar and contacts datapartly - export and import per user
App data, comments, activitystays behind - plan the goodbye
Budget your time for the rows that say does not move. The files are the easy part.
Example migration panel - the pattern is the same in both directions
1
What Moves Easily - The Files Themselves
Both platforms speak WebDAV and ship desktop sync clients, so the data layer is portable by design. The standard routes: point the desktop client at the new server and let it sync the library across, use a sync tool such as rclone between the two WebDAV endpoints, or move the data directory server-side and let a scan index it - on Nextcloud that is the occ files:scan --all step after the files land. Folder structure and file contents arrive intact. Version history and trash contents usually do not, so tell users to rescue anything they keep in the recycle bin before the move.
2
What Does Not Move - Plan to Rebuild It
Users and passwords: accounts are recreated on the new platform, or connected fresh to your LDAP or identity provider if you use one.
Shares and public links: every shared folder and every link your clients have bookmarked must be re-created - warn people early, because old links simply die.
App-shaped data: calendars and contacts can be exported and imported per user as standard files where the apps exist on the other side; boards, forms, Talk history, comments and activity streams effectively stay behind.
Settings and theming: quotas, groups and policies are an afternoon of re-entry, not a transfer.
3
The Practical Route, In the Right Order
Freeze and announce: pick a quiet window, tell users links will change, and stop edits on the old box.
Build the new home first: install, harden, create users and groups, and set quotas before any data arrives.
Move files, then prove it: sync the data across, run the file scan, and spot-check the five folders people actually care about.
Re-share deliberately: rebuild shares from the list you exported or screenshotted beforehand - not from memory.
Keep the old box read-only for a month: it is your rollback and your answer to every we-lost-a-file panic, true or not.
The working-system rule: do not migrate a healthy install just because a comparison page made the other side look shiny. Migrate at a natural break - new hardware, a version you must leave behind, a need the current platform genuinely cannot meet - and the project pays for itself. Migrate on a whim and it is pure cost.
Watch the Complete Video Guide
The video shows both platforms live - useful twice over if you are planning a switch, because you can see exactly what your users will land in.
No maintained magic button exists for a full conversion. ownCloud documents a migration path from its own Classic to Infinite Scale, and files move between any of these platforms by standard sync - but users, shares and app data are rebuilt by hand in every direction.
How long does a migration take?
For a small office, the file transfer is hours at most and the real work - accounts, shares, user communication - is a planned day plus a month of the old system kept read-only. Anyone promising you an invisible lunchtime switch is selling something.
Will my existing share links keep working?
No. Links belong to the platform that issued them. This is the single most underestimated cost of switching - inventory your important external shares before you move, and re-issue them from the new system on day one.
This guide is based on the Technical Anshu video comparing Nextcloud and OwnCloud. Stuck on a step? Ask in the video comments - you will get an answer there.