Nextcloud bot

Nextcloud is an open-source, self-hosted content collaboration platform, not a web crawler. However, applications within a Nextcloud instance can interact with external websites, and they identify themselves with user-agents like Mozilla/5.0 (Nextcloud) or more specific ones like Nextcloud-News. This traffic is not from an automated, web-wide crawling system but from individual Nextcloud instances deployed by organizations and individuals who want to maintain control over their data. A distinctive characteristic is its focus on digital sovereignty and privacy.

If you are seeing Nextcloud-related traffic, it is because a user of a self-hosted Nextcloud instance is interacting with your content. Common reasons include a user subscribing to your RSS feed through the Nextcloud News app, saving one of your pages with the Page app, or embedding a link to your site in Nextcloud Talk. These requests are triggered by specific user actions, and their frequency depends on how those users have configured their applications and how often they interact with your content.

The purpose of Nextcloud's web interactions is to support the functionality of its collaboration platform, which is designed as a private alternative to commercial cloud services. When its applications access external sites, it is to fulfill user requests, such as displaying RSS feeds or embedding external content. The data is stored within the user's private Nextcloud instance and is not aggregated for commercial purposes. For website owners, this traffic indicates that your content is being consumed by individuals who have chosen to engage with it through their personal or organizational Nextcloud deployment.

If you wish to prevent Nextcloud instances from accessing your site, you can add a rule to your robots.txt file. Keep in mind that this traffic represents genuine user interest.

To block the bot, you can use its general user-agent. Add the following lines to your robots.txt file:

User-agent: Nextcloud
Disallow: /