DAV & database commands

dav:list-addressbooks

List all addressbooks for a user:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ dav:list-addressbooks layla
+-------------+----------+-----------------------------+-------------------+----------+
| Database ID | URI      | Owner principal             | Owner displayname | Writable |
+-------------+----------+-----------------------------+-------------------+----------+
| contacts    | Contacts | principals/users/layla      | Layla Smith       |  ✓       |
+-------------+----------+-----------------------------+-------------------+----------+

dav:create-addressbook

Create an addressbook for a user:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ dav:create-addressbook layla work

dav:list-calendars

List all calendars for a user:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ dav:list-calendars layla
+----------+-------------+-----------------------------+-------------------+----------+
| URI      | Displayname | Owner principal             | Owner displayname | Writable |
+----------+-------------+-----------------------------+-------------------+----------+
| personal | Personal    | principals/users/layla      | Layla Smith       |  ✓       |
+----------+-------------+-----------------------------+-------------------+----------+

dav:list-calendar-shares

List all calendar shares for a user:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ dav:list-calendar-shares layla
  User layla has no calendar shares

Use --calendar-id to filter results to a specific calendar.

dav:create-calendar

Create a calendar for a user:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ dav:create-calendar layla holidays

dav:delete-calendar

Delete a named calendar for a user:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ dav:delete-calendar layla holidays

Use --birthday to delete the birthday calendar instead of specifying a name. Use -f / --force to delete immediately instead of moving to the trashbin:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ dav:delete-calendar --force layla holidays
sudo -E -u www-data php occ dav:delete-calendar --birthday layla

dav:move-calendar

Move a calendar from one user to another:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ dav:move-calendar personal layla fred

Without --force, the command fails if the destination user already has a calendar with the same name, or if the calendar is shared with a group the destination user is not a member of.

Use -f / --force to proceed anyway: conflicting group shares are dropped, and if the calendar name is already taken at the destination a new name is tried automatically (personal-1, personal-2, up to ten attempts). The command fails if no free name is found within those attempts.

dav:clear-calendar-unshares

Clear stale calendar unshare records for a user. Useful when a user's calendar sharing state has become inconsistent:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ dav:clear-calendar-unshares layla
  User layla has no calendar unshares

dav:list-subscriptions

List all calendar subscriptions for a user:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ dav:list-subscriptions layla
  User layla has no subscriptions

dav:create-subscription

Create a subscription calendar for a user:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ dav:create-subscription layla "Astronomy Calendar" \
  webcal://cantonbecker.com/astronomy-calendar/astrocal.ics

Optionally pass a HEX color code for the calendar:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ dav:create-subscription layla "Astronomy Calendar" \
  webcal://cantonbecker.com/astronomy-calendar/astrocal.ics "#ff5733"

If not set, the theming default color is used.

dav:delete-subscription

Delete a calendar subscription for a user:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ dav:delete-subscription layla "Astronomy Calendar"

dav:absence:set

Set the out-of-office absence for a user. first-day and last-day are inclusive and formatted as YYYY-MM-DD.

• short-message — a brief one-liner displayed as the user's status next to their name across the UI while they are absent (e.g. in contacts, chat, and user lists).

• message — the full out-of-office text shown to users who try to reach the absent user.

• replacement-user-id — optional; a colleague to contact instead. Their display name is stored alongside the absence and shown to others.

sudo -E -u www-data php occ dav:absence:set layla 2026-05-01 2026-05-15 \
  "On leave" \
  "I am on leave until May 15. For urgent matters please contact my colleague."

To set an absence with a replacement user:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ dav:absence:set layla 2026-05-01 2026-05-15 \
  "On leave" \
  "I am on leave. Please contact fred for urgent matters." \
  fred

dav:absence:get

Show the current absence settings for a user:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ dav:absence:get layla
  Start day: 2026-05-01
  End day: 2026-05-15
  Short message: On leave
  Message: I am on leave until May 15. For urgent matters please contact my colleague.
  Replacement user: none
  Replacement display name: none

dav:sync-system-addressbook

Synchronize all users to the :ref:`system address book<system-address-book>`:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ dav:sync-system-addressbook
  Syncing users ...

dav:sync-birthday-calendar

Add birthdays from shared addressbooks to a user's calendar:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ dav:sync-birthday-calendar layla
  Start birthday calendar sync for layla

dav:fix-missing-caldav-changes

Restore missing calendar sync change records. If the calendarchanges table has lost data, clients may not sync correctly. Run for a single user, or omit the user ID to fix all users (may take some time on large instances):

sudo -E -u www-data php occ dav:fix-missing-caldav-changes layla
sudo -E -u www-data php occ dav:fix-missing-caldav-changes

dav:remove-invalid-shares

Remove invalid DAV shares created by a bug in a previous version:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ dav:remove-invalid-shares

dav:retention:clean-up

Delete elements from the CalDAV trash that are past their retention period:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ dav:retention:clean-up

dav:send-event-reminders

Send pending calendar event reminder notifications. By default, Nextcloud sends reminders via the background job. To use this command instead, switch the mode first:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ config:app:set dav sendEventRemindersMode --value occ

Then call the command regularly via a dedicated cron job to ensure reminders are sent on time:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ dav:send-event-reminders

See :doc:`../groupware/calendar` for the recommended cron schedule.

dav:clear-contacts-photo-cache

Clear all cached contact photos. Useful after a migration or if contact avatars are not displaying correctly:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ dav:clear-contacts-photo-cache
  No cached contact photos found.

calendar:export

Export a calendar to a file or standard output:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ calendar:export layla personal --location /tmp/personal.ics

--format selects the output format (default: ical):

• ical — iCalendar (RFC 5545)

• xcal — XML iCalendar (RFC 6321)

• jcal — JSON iCalendar (RFC 7265)

--location sets the output file path. If omitted, output is written to standard output:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ calendar:export layla personal --format xcal \
  --location /tmp/personal.xcal
sudo -E -u www-data php occ calendar:export layla personal --format jcal

calendar:import

Import calendar entries into a user's calendar:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ calendar:import layla personal /tmp/personal.ics

--format selects the input format (default: ical). Same values as calendar:export. If location is omitted, reads from standard input:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ calendar:import --format xcal layla personal \
  /tmp/personal.xcal
cat /tmp/personal.ics | sudo -E -u www-data php occ calendar:import layla personal

--supersede forces override of existing objects with the same UID.

Validation behaviour is controlled with --validation:

• 0 — no validation

• 1 — validate, skip invalid entries

• 2 — validate, fail on invalid entries

Error handling is controlled with --errors:

• 0 — continue on error (default)

• 1 — fail on first error

Use --show-created, --show-updated, --show-skipped, or --show-errors to see the UIDs of affected objects after import.

db:add-missing-indices

Add any indices to the database that are defined in the schema but missing from the current installation. Run this after upgrades if performance has degraded or if prompted by the admin overview:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ db:add-missing-indices
  Done.

Use --dry-run to preview the SQL statements without executing them:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ db:add-missing-indices --dry-run

db:add-missing-columns

Add optional columns that are defined in the schema but missing from the current installation:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ db:add-missing-columns
  Done.

Use --dry-run to preview the SQL statements without executing them.

db:add-missing-primary-keys

Add primary keys that are defined in the schema but missing from the current installation:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ db:add-missing-primary-keys
  Done.

Use --dry-run to preview the SQL statements without executing them.

db:schema:check

Compare the live database schema with the schema expected for the currently installed Nextcloud version:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ db:schema:check
  The live database schema matches the expected schema.

The expected schema is generated from the migrations provided by Nextcloud core, all enabled apps, and any disabled apps whose code is still present. The command reports missing or unexpected tables, columns, and indexes. It also reports column properties that differ, such as the type, length, default value, or whether the column is nullable.

The command only inspects the schema and does not modify the database. It exits with status 0 if there are no findings for core or an enabled app, and status 1 otherwise. This makes it suitable for use in monitoring scripts. Findings that only concern a disabled app never affect the exit status. They are excluded from the plain output unless you add -v:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ db:schema:check -v
  oc_example: column 'size' differs in: type, default
  Disabled apps (not affecting exit code):
  If the schema for a disabled app differs from what is expected, this might indicate the app was
  updated since it was disabled. Missing migrations will be applied once the app is enabled again.
    files_external:
      - oc_storages: missing column 'backend'

Specify a table name to limit the comparison to that table:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ db:schema:check oc_filecache

Use the complete table name, including the configured database table prefix. Use --output=json or --output=json_pretty to produce machine-readable output. Unlike plain output, JSON output always includes every finding, including those for disabled apps. For example:

$ sudo -E -u www-data php occ db:schema:check --output=json_pretty
[
    {
        "table": "oc_filecache",
        "type": "modified_column",
        "name": "size",
        "changes": [
            "type",
            "default"
        ],
        "app": null,
        "enabled": true
    },
    {
        "table": "oc_storages",
        "type": "missing_column",
        "name": "backend",
        "app": "files_external",
        "enabled": false
    },
    {
        "table": "oc_example",
        "type": "unexpected_table",
        "app": null,
        "enabled": true
    }
]

Each finding contains:

• table — the complete database table name.

• type — one of missing_table, unexpected_table, missing_column, unexpected_column, modified_column, missing_index, or unexpected_index.

• name — the affected column or index. This field is omitted for table findings.

• changes — the changed column properties. This field is only present when type is modified_column. Possible values include type, length, precision, scale, nullable, default, autoincrement, unsigned, fixed, and comment.

• app — the ID of the disabled app that owns the affected table, or null if the table belongs to core or an enabled app.

• enabled — false if the finding only concerns a disabled app and does not affect the exit status, true otherwise.

When the schemas match, JSON output contains an empty array.

The schema check also runs automatically after occ upgrade. Findings for core or an enabled app are displayed as warnings but do not cause the upgrade to fail; findings that only concern a disabled app are not shown here. For example, the following output may appear near the end of an upgrade:

The database schema does not match what is expected for the installed version:
  - oc_filecache: column 'size' differs in: type, default
  - oc_filecache: missing index 'fs_storage_path_hash'
  - unexpected table 'oc_example'
Run "occ db:schema:check -v" for details.

Run occ db:schema:check separately to inspect the differences in plain (add -v to include disabled-app findings) or machine-readable format.

db:schema:export

Export the current database schema. Useful for debugging or comparing against the expected schema:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ db:schema:export
  - oc_filecache:
    - columns:
      - checksum:
        - name: checksum
        - type: string

Limit output to a single table:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ db:schema:export oc_filecache

Use --sql to output SQL CREATE TABLE statements instead of the default structured format. Use --output=json_pretty for machine-readable output.

db:schema:expected

Export the expected schema for a fresh installation of the current version. Compare this against db:schema:export to identify divergences caused by incomplete upgrades or manual changes:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ db:schema:expected
sudo -E -u www-data php occ db:schema:expected oc_filecache

Supports the same --sql and --output options as db:schema:export.

db:convert-filecache-bigint

Convert the filecache table's ID columns from integer to BigInt. Required on large installations where file IDs have exceeded the integer limit. This command is non-destructive but may take time on large databases:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ db:convert-filecache-bigint

db:convert-mysql-charset

Convert all MySQL or MariaDB tables to use utf8mb4 (full Unicode, including emoji). Required for proper Unicode support. Run this once after switching to or upgrading MySQL/MariaDB:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ db:convert-mysql-charset

db:convert-type

Convert the Nextcloud database from SQLite to MySQL, MariaDB, or PostgreSQL. SQLite is suitable for testing and single-user setups, but production servers with multiple users should use one of the other supported databases.

Requirements:

• The target database and its PHP connector must be installed.

• Login credentials for a database admin user.

• The database port number, if non-standard.

This example converts from SQLite to MySQL/MariaDB:

sudo -E -u www-data php occ db:convert-type mysql oc_dbuser 127.0.0.1 oc_database

For a detailed walkthrough see :doc:`../configuration_database/db_conversion`.