Folders, Access and Websites

Shares, buckets and sites are not separate things to set up here. There is one directory tree, managed on the Content tab, and every top-level folder in it is an SMB share, an S3 bucket and a website at the same time.

One tree

Create a folder called photos in the app, in the Files app or with the create-bucket command of any S3 client, and it immediately exists in every sense:

as the folder photos on the network drive,
as the S3 bucket photos for signed clients,
as the website https://yourserver.nas2.dk/photos/ when public,
and as a plain folder you can browse and edit in the Files app.

These are the same bytes with no copies and no sync step. When you delete the folder you remove the share, the bucket and the site, since they were never separate things.

A git repository is one of these folders too and has a .git directory inside it, so it is a share and a bucket like any other. A camera feed is not a folder, but it takes its name from the same list, so nothing in the tree can end up sharing a name with anything else.

Off, private, protected or public

Each top-level folder has exactly one setting, which is its access level, and everything inside the folder inherits it. The four levels widen the audience one step at a time:

Off: the folder stays in the tree and in the Files app but is not shared or served at all.
Private, the default. The folder is on the network drive for signed-in accounts, and S3 requests need a signature from one of your access keys. Web browsers are always refused, so a folder you drop into Files is never accidentally world-readable.
Protected: exactly like private as far as S3 is concerned, and a web browser may read it after signing in with a device account. Use this for pages meant for the household rather than the world.
Public: anyone can view and download over the web and the folder serves as a website. All changes still require a signed request, and so does listing the folder over S3, so a public site does not reveal its complete file inventory.

Backups are the exception. A folder holding a Time Machine backup is a complete copy of somebody's Mac and is never handed to an anonymous web visitor, whatever its access level says. The network drive, signed S3 clients and signed-in browsers are unaffected.

Websites

A public folder serves its index.html at /photos/ and shows its 404.html for missing pages, and you place both in the folder root. When there is no index.html, a per-folder toggle decides whether visitors get a plain directory listing. You edit a page in the Files app or upload it with an S3 client, and the change is live on the next request. Appending ?w=400 to an image URL returns a downscaled copy, which is useful for thumbnails.

You decide which folder answers at the server's front door, /. Pick a default website in Settings or leave the built-in landing page in place. For sites with layouts, Markdown and posts, see Template Sites.

Everything is in the Files app

The whole tree is visible in the Files app under On My iPhone → NAS Reborn and in the Finder when you connect the device by cable. You import folders by dragging them in and you copy them out the same way, at any time and with nothing to export first. Long-press a folder in NAS Reborn to open it directly in Files.

Hidden files stay hidden. Files and folders whose name starts with a dot or an underscore (.git, .env, .DS_Store, _config.yml, _layouts) are never served to web visitors, even in public folders. Your own signed S3 clients still see them, so syncing a working directory round-trips completely.

Folders from other apps and drives

NAS Reborn can also serve a folder that lives outside its own storage, such as a directory on a USB drive or one managed by another app like Working Copy. Add it with the folder picker or drag it in from the Files app, and it appears as a normal folder in the tree, labeled with where it lives: "Managed by" the owning app, the name of the drive, or On My iPhone. Adding an external folder and sharing it on the network drive is free like any other folder, while serving it as a website or an S3 bucket is part of the Pro unlock. Adapters, power and drive formats are covered in External Drives.

When an external folder becomes unreachable, because the drive was unplugged or the owning app was removed, its row says so in plain words and web and S3 clients get a "try again later" answer. When you remove an external folder you only stop serving it and the external files are never touched.

Free tier limits

The free tier serves up to 2 folders, each serving up to 5 GB over web and S3. The limits stop serving and never sharing, so SMB and Files-app writes are not counted and a Time Machine backup grows freely past any quota. A folder over its serving quota stops answering web and S3 downloads and refuses new uploads until it is back under the limit, while listing and deleting stay open so you can fix it. With more than 2 folders turned on, sharing and serving pause entirely until a folder is set to Off or deleted. The Pro unlock removes all of it.

Two folders do not count against that limit. Git repositories have a budget of their own, and the Time Machine folder is exempt entirely. It is created for you the first time a Mac backs up.