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x0b edited this page Sep 30, 2019 · 9 revisions

Documentation

RcloneExplorer is an Android application that integrates cloud providers using rclone for cloud storage and Android platform interfaces for local storage.

Table of Contents

Basic Setup

When you open up rcloneExplorer for the first time, rcloneExplorer will ask you import a rclone configuration file (rclone.conf) or create a new one by adding a remote with (+). A "remote" is a single configured cloud location in rclone.

There are various types of remotes and rcloneExplorer supports all storage remotes and most of the meta-remotes like crypt that encrypts other remotes and union that combines multiple remotes. You can see all supported remote types on rclone.org. Note that you can only configure some types inside of the app, but you can always import a configuration to allow more remote types.

Keep in mind that rclone does not supports all features on all remotes (see optional feature matrix)- and for larger file operations, you need both a stable network connection and enough battery.

RcloneExplorer 1.9 feature preview

Adding local storage (SAF)

Feature Quality: Beta, data loss can occur but generally shouldn't.

Starting in Android 10, applications no longer have direct access to user-visible file storage. As a result, rclone can no longer access your files using standard Linux file APIs and your "local" remotes won't be very useful.

Starting in version 1.9.0, rcloneExplorer features a new storage frontend/backend system that uses the Storage Access Framework, an Android 4.4+ system for managing file and file tree-like content. You must enable this feature in Settings> File Access>Enable SAF Client Preview. Then you can add any SAF-accessible storage location using Add Storage.

This will launch the system's file manager, allowing you to grant access to any storage location.

App Compatibility

Note that storage provided by third party apps can currently not be correctly read by the internal rclone and is therefore inaccessible.

Accessing cloud content from other apps (VCP)

Feature Quality: Preview, data loss is expected!

In addition to to reading local storage via the Storage Access Framework, rcloneExplorer version 1.9.0+ can allow other apps to access files on your cloud remotes from within those apps. You must enable this feature in Settings> File Access>Enable Content Provider Preview. Other apps can then be granted access to cloud files, just like rcloneExplorer uses these interfaces to access local content.

App Compatibility

Generally, all apps should be compatible if they have implemented SAF correctly, but the ones below were actually tested.

  • DocumentsUI ("Files" app on Android 10, "Downloads" on previous versions) - file browsing only, no read/write operations
  • Total Commander - file browsing only, no read/write operations
Open A Single File (Intent#ACTION_OPEN_DOCUMENT)
Create A Single File (Intent#ACTION_CREATE_DOCUMENT)
  • (none)