Nextcloud custom apps dir

Published: 8 Sep 2026

Do you wish you could have the custom apps you install in a different location to the default apps?

Here is the process to make it happen:

• make a backup of the nextcloud config (nextcloud/config/config.php)
• make a new directory for custom apps (e.g. one level up from the nextcloud location)
  • /srv/www/nextcloud-apps for example
• update the nextcloud config with the below config before the closing );
• now you need to know what custom apps you have and move them over
• or you could get the list of things you have installed and uninstall them, then reinstall

  'apps_paths' =>
  array (
    0 =>
    array (
      'path' => '/srv/www/nextcloud/apps',
      'url' => '/apps',
      'writable' => false,
    ),
    1 =>
    array (
      'path' => '/srv/www/nextcloud-apps',
      'url' => '/extra-apps',
      'writable' => true,
    ),
  ),

The best time I found to do this, is as part of the upgrade process. As you will need to unpack a new version and copy your custom apps.

Below is a script I used to get my custom apps from the old version and into my new custom apps directory

diff /srv/www/nextcloud.old/apps /srv/www/nextcloud/apps/ | grep -v 'Common subdirectories:' | awk -F ': ' '{print $2}' |
while read APP
do
  cp -r "/srv/www/nextcloud.old/apps/${APP}" /srv/www/nextcloud-apps/
done

chown www-data:www-data /srv/www/nextcloud-apps/ -R

Once all that is done, you will need a symlink in the root of the nextcloud install. Use the below to do that.

ln -s /srv/www/nextcloud/extra-apps /srv/www/nextcloud-apps