Wusel
Nextcloud, woven into your desktop.
Wusel is a virtual file system for Nextcloud, written in Rust (referred to
technically as wusel).
VFS-first: Files are "online only" by default and are only loaded on
access (on-demand hydration), instead of mirroring everything locally. This
lets wusel offer on Linux what the official client still does not deliver.
wusel is deliberately more than just FUSE. FUSE only makes the files appear;
on top of that engine Wusel is a full GNOME desktop integration, so your
Nextcloud behaves like a native part of the desktop rather than a mounted drive:
-
Files (Nautilus) — a Wusel (Nextcloud) entry in the sidebar (
libcloudproviders), a per-file status emblem (online-only, cached, pinned/always-offline, pending upload) and a right-click Make Available Offline / Free Up Space toggle. Emblems refresh live as files hydrate. -
GNOME Shell search — start typing in the Activities overview and your Nextcloud files appear (Unified Search), opening straight from
~/Wusel. -
Notifications — sync events surface as native, localized desktop notifications (the one place Wusel speaks the user’s language).
-
Runs like a system component — a systemd user service mounts at login, it stays out of desktop indexers, and the whole thing installs from an RPM.
FUSE is thus only the first of several frontends on the same engine. Native frontends without any FUSE dependency — a macOS File Provider and a Windows one — remain planned; see the roadmap.
Wusel is opinionated. It prefers to use what the OS and desktop environment already provide — the file manager’s sidebar and emblems, the shell’s search, the system’s notifications, the OS keyring — rather than reinventing them inside a bespoke app window or a tray icon. That means fewer moving parts to maintain, and an experience that feels native because it is native. Where the desktop offers a good home for something, Wusel lives there instead of building its own.
At a glance
| Crate | Role |
|---|---|
|
Engine: Login Flow v2, WebDAV, sync, state (platform-independent) |
|
FUSE frontend as a library (Linux) |
|
Linux/GNOME integration behind |
|
Daemon/CLI — the product |