How to Configure Guest Accounts
To use the Guest Accounts feature in Nextcloud, ensure the following prerequisites are met:
- SMTP Account Setup: An SMTP account must be configured in your Nextcloud instance.
- Guest App Installation: The administrator should install the Guest app in Nextcloud.
The Guest Accounts feature empowers administrators to create temporary accounts for external collaborators like vendors and contractors. These accounts offer precise access control, ensuring that users can only interact with files and folders they have been explicitly granted access. This makes Guest Accounts an ideal choice for collaborations, such as working with clients through dedicated folders or resolving support issues with customer input.
The Nextcloud Email wizard supports three types of mail server connections: SMTP, qmail, and Sendmail. Use the SMTP configurator for a remote server or Sendmail when your mail server is on the same machine as Nextcloud.
1. To access the setup page below, log in with an admin account. Click on your avatar in the top right, and then click Settings. On the left side, under Administration, click Basic Settings.
2. Navigate to the Email server section.
With this wizard, connecting Nextcloud to your mail server is fast and easy. The wizard fills in the values in config/config.php, so you may use either or both as you prefer.
Configuring an SMTP server
You need the following information from your mail server administrator to connect Nextcloud to a remote SMTP server:
Please note that there were changes to the 3rd party mailer library in Nextcloud 26:
- STARTTLS cannot be enforced. It will be used automatically if the mail server supports it. The encryption type should be set to ‘None/STARTTLS’ in this case. See here for an example on how to configure self signed certificates.
- NTLM authentication for Microsoft Exchange is not supported by the new mailer library. Try using basic authentication instead.
- Select the send mode as SMTP.
- Encryption type: None/STARTTLS or SSL
- The From address you want your outgoing Nextcloud mails to use
- Choose whether authentication is required.
- Authentication: when authentication is required, the underlying mailer will try the following authentication methods in the order they’re listed:
- CramMd5
- Login
- Plain
- XOAuth2
6. The server’s IP address or fully-qualified domain name and the SMTP port.
7. Login credentials (if required).
The overwrite.cli.url parameter from config.php Will be used for the SMTP EHLO.
Your changes are saved immediately, and you can click the Send Email button to test your configuration. This sends a test message to the email address you configured on your Personal page. The test message says:
If you received this email below, the settings seem to be correct.
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Nextcloud
a safe home for all your data
Manage guest account settings
Now that you have an SMPT account setup, you can proceed to manage the guest account settings by following the steps below:
1. Log in to your Nextcloud instance.
2. Click on your user avatar or name in the top right corner of the Nextcloud interface to open the user menu.
3. From the dropdown menu, select Administration settings.
4. From the sidebar menu, click on the Sendent option.
5. Switch to Group Settings tab
6. Scroll down to the group settings section and switch to Sendent for Outlook option.
7. Navigate down to the Guest Accounts Section.
The Guest Accounts feature in Sendent for Outlook allows administrators to create temporary accounts for external collaborators such as vendors and contractors. Here’s how to configure these settings:
- Activate Guest Accounts - Set Activate Guest accounts to Enabled to allow the creation of guest accounts.
- Enforce Guest Accounts - Set Enforce Guest accounts to Enabled to enforce the use of guest accounts for external collaboration.
- Disable Anonymous Share - Set Disable Anonymous Share to Enable to prevent anonymous sharing of files and folders.
- Configure Share File Snippets - Use the Toggle editor buttons to customize the snippets for sharing files with guest accounts.
- Configure Public Share Snippets - Use the Toggle editor buttons to customize the snippets for public shares with guest accounts.
Guest accounts are created using the recipient’s email address. Once a share is created, the guest user will receive an email notification with a link to set their password. Guest users can only access the files shared with them and cannot create any files outside of these shares.
When the Guest account function is activated, a dialogue box will appear immediately when users click the “Send” button. This allows you to select one or multiple email addresses to share with.
If an email address is deselected, files will not be shared with that email address.