I have a TrueNAS server at home and thought I could easily connect it to my phone (Pixel 7) as a network drive but was surprised to learn that Android doesn’t have a built in feature for that.

iOS/iPadOS does have this to my surprise built in via the ‘Files’ app.

Or did I just not look hard enough in the Android settings? (I know there are 3rd party apps for this)

  • Brokkr@lemmy.worldEnglish
    285·
    1 year ago

    I think this is a function that should be delegated to an app, so that users can choose from a variety of options. Having it built in would restrict that choice. Kind of like keyboards.

    • 30p87@feddit.deEnglish
      83·
      1 year ago

      iOS, as far as I remember, only supports WebDav. Which is useless with an SFTP server, ofc. And yes, there is the solution of installing another file server, configuring it, maintaining it, ripping a new hole into the Firewall, and fiddling around with file permissions, but that sucks, obviously. You could of course buy (or even subscribe to, I believe) a third party, closed sourced, app.

      Then there’s Android, with FOSS apps like RemoteFiles, because sideloading.
      Or just mount it with rclone.

      And in my case, I don’t need an actual mount anyway, because the FOSS Keepass2Android has native SFTP support, because it makes sense to have it.

    • bdonvr@thelemmy.clubEnglish
      72·
      1 year ago

      Why not both?

      I shouldn’t have to wade through possibly ad-filled, data-collecting, unknown third party apps to do a basic function…

      • Brokkr@lemmy.worldEnglish
        21·
        1 year ago

        I think some phone manufacturers do offer a files app, I don’t know which ones have smb capabilities though. Regardless, it is an app, not a part of the OS. Also sounds like that’s how Apple implements it too, except they probably don’t let you use a different app.