Uploading big files > 512MB
The default maximum file size for uploads is 512MB. You can increase this limit up to what your filesystem and operating system allows. There are certain hard limits that cannot be exceeded:
< 2GB on 32Bit OS-architecture
< 2GB with IE6 - IE8
< 4GB with IE9 - IE11
64-bit filesystems have much higher limits; consult the documentation for your filesystem.
System configuration
Make sure that the latest version of PHP is installed
Disable user quotas, which makes them unlimited
Your temp file or partition has to be big enough to hold multiple parallel uploads from multiple users; e.g. if the max upload size is 10GB and the average number of users uploading at the same time is 100: temp space has to hold at least 10x100 GB
Configuring your Web server
Set the following two parameters inside the corresponding php.ini file (see the Loaded Configuration File section of :ref:`label-phpinfo` to find your relevant php.ini files)
php_value upload_max_filesize 16G php_value post_max_size 16G
The upload_max_filesize and post_max_size settings may not apply to file uploads through WebDAV single file PUT requests or Chunked file uploads For those, PHP and webserver timeouts are the limiting factor on the upload size.
Adjust these values for your needs. If you see PHP timeouts in your logfiles, increase the timeout values, which are in seconds:
php_value max_input_time 3600 php_value max_execution_time 3600
The mod_reqtimeout Apache module could also stop large uploads from completing. If you're using this module and getting failed uploads of large files either disable it in your Apache config or raise the configured RequestReadTimeout timeouts.
There are also several other configuration options in your Web server config which could prevent the upload of larger files. Please see the manual of your Web server for how to configure those values correctly:
Apache
LimitRequestBody (In Apache HTTP Server <=2.4.53 this defaulted to unlimited, but now defaults to 1 GiB. The new default limits uploads from non-chunking clients to 1 GiB. If this is a concern in your environment, override the new default by either manually setting it to 0 or to a value similar to that used for your local environment's PHP upload_max_filesize / post_max_size / memory_limit parameters.)
Apache with mod_fcgid
Apache with mod_proxy_fcgi
nginx
fastcgi_read_timeout [often the solution to 504 timeouts during MOVE transactions that occur even when using chunking]
If your site is behind a nginx frontend (for example a loadbalancer):
By default, downloads will be limited to 1GB due to proxy_buffering and proxy_max_temp_file_size on the frontend.
If you can access the frontend's configuration, disable proxy_buffering or increase proxy_max_temp_file_size from the default 1GB.
If you do not have access to the frontend, set the X-Accel-Buffering header to add_header X-Accel-Buffering no; on your backend server.
Configuring PHP
If you don't want to use the Nextcloud .htaccess or .user.ini file, you may configure PHP instead. Make sure to comment out any lines .htaccess pertaining to upload size, if you entered any.
If you are running Nextcloud on a 32-bit system, any open_basedir directive in your php.ini file needs to be commented out.
Set the following two parameters inside php.ini, using your own desired file size values:
upload_max_filesize = 16G post_max_size = 16G
Tell PHP which temp directory you want it to use:
upload_tmp_dir = /var/big_temp_file/
Output Buffering must be turned off in .htaccess or .user.ini or php.ini, or PHP will return memory-related errors:
output_buffering = 0
Configuring Nextcloud
As an alternative to the upload_tmp_dir of PHP (e.g. if you don't have access to your php.ini) you can also configure a temporary location for uploaded files by using the tempdirectory setting in your config.php (See :doc:`../configuration_server/config_sample_php_parameters`).
If you have configured the session_lifetime setting in your config.php (See :doc:`../configuration_server/config_sample_php_parameters`) file then make sure it is not too low. This setting needs to be configured to at least the time (in seconds) that the longest upload will take. If unsure remove this completely from your configuration to reset it to the default shown in the config.sample.php.
Adjust chunk size on Nextcloud side
For upload performance improvements in environments with high upload bandwidth, the server's upload chunk size may be adjusted:
sudo -E -u www-data php occ config:system:set --type int --value 20971520 files.chunked_upload.max_size
Put in a value in bytes (in this example, 20MB). Set --value 0 for no chunking at all.
Default is 104857600 (100 MiB).
Large file upload on object storage
Chunked file uploads do have a larger space consumption on the temporary folder when processing those uploads on object storage as the individual chunks get downloaded from the storage and will be assembled to the actual file on the Nextcloud servers temporary directory. It is recommended to increase the size of your temp directory accordingly and also ensure that request timeouts are high enough for PHP, webservers or any load balancers involved.
Federated Cloud Sharing
If you are using :doc:`Federated Cloud Sharing <federated_cloud_sharing_configuration>` and want to share large files, you can increase the timeout values for requests to the federated servers. Therefore, you can set davstorage.request_timeout in your config.php. The default value is 30 seconds.