How to Install a NextCloud app in Ubuntu 20.4 Using terminal

So I recently installed NextCloud but found a few recommended apps like Task, Deck and Notes missing. I however, could not find them on the apps menu thus I had to resort to using the terminal to install them.

What is NextCloud?

Now before I continue this is a just a brief introduction to those who do not know what NextCloud is. It is a file-sharing web app like Dropbox or Google Drive which can be installed in your own server – and its free!

If you want instructions on how to install NextCloud on Ubuntu then I’d recommend this resource at DigitalOcean (https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-and-configure-nextcloud-on-ubuntu-20-04)

In this post, I share the basic of how to install an app. I will be using Task as the example.

The first thing I did was find the Tasks app in NextCloud apps (https://apps.nextcloud.com/). Just type tasks in the search bar and it should pop up.

Then download the appropriate version for your installation of NextCloud; I will be downloading the version 21 using wget:

wget https://github.com/nextcloud/tasks/releases/download/v0.13.6/tasks.tar.gz

Once the file has been downloaded successfully, extract the archived file using the tar command.

tar -xzf tasks.tar.gz

Now move the extracted folder to the apps folder for your NextCloud installation using mv command. Note that you will also need sudo for these next parts.

sudo mv tasks /var/www/nextcloud/apps/

It is also important to note that your destination folder i.e., where NextCloud is installed may vary depending on which web server you are using.

The next step – although not necessary – is to restart your web server. I am using apache2 in Ubuntu so I will be using systemctl.

sudo systemctl restart apache2

The app is now installed. However, you will still need to enable it so it can be usable. This is done in the dashboard web interface.

Access the apps as shown in the picture.

Now find the app and enable it.

Once the app has been enabled, you should see an icon on the menu.

Now installing other apps is pretty much the same – unless the developers have an installer or method of installation.

The capability of adding extra functions into NextCloud means that it can be used for a wide variety of purposes, for example, it can be used as an intranet etc.

Anyway, I hope this will come in hand and show some love by sharing this post.