[Bug]: Keeping File Provider Items Available Offline Does Not Apply Recursively

[i2h3]

⚠️ Before submitting, please verify the following: ⚠️

• This is a bug, not a question or a configuration issue.
• This issue is not already reported on Github (I've searched it).
• Nextcloud Server and Desktop Client are up to date. See Server Maintenance and Release Schedule and Desktop Releases for supported versions.
• I agree to follow Nextcloud's Code of Conduct

Bug description

The feature of keeping a file provider item available offline to not be evicted by the system or some other reason automatically does not apply to child items.

Steps to reproduce

1. Have a file provider domain set up.
2. In the context menu of a folder, select "Always keep downloaded".

Expected behavior

The "Always keep downloaded" is not applied to the selected item only, but all children, too. Selecting a whole folder to keep available locally all the time naturally includes all of its content, at least for me.

Which files are affected by this bug

Yes

Operating system

macOS

Which version of the operating system you are running.

Tahoe 26.1

Package

Official macOS Virtual files 12+ universal pkg

Nextcloud Server version

Any

Nextcloud Desktop Client version

Developer Build

Is this bug present after an update or on a fresh install?

Fresh desktop client install

Are you using the Nextcloud Server Encryption module?

Encryption is Disabled

Are you using an external user-backend?

• Default internal user-backend
• LDAP/ Active Directory
• SSO - SAML
• Other

Nextcloud Server logs

Additional info

A community report in the forum made me aware of this.

[phipz]

I just tried to reproduce, but on my end this seems to work:

Nextcloud Desktop Client Version 4.0.1 (macOS) VFS / Stable
macOS 26.1

recursive_stativ.mov

[i2h3]

That is what I observed, too. As visible, the selected root and its descendants are downloaded. But in contrast to the selected root, the content policy of the descendants is not updated likewise. You can check this by opening the context menu on a descendant and there you will still see the "keep downloaded" item instead of the inverse as on the originally selected root. Not the download is the problem, the flag of keeping it downloaded is not inherited yet.

[phipz]

But in contrast to the selected root, the content policy of the descendants is not updated likewise.

If I add a file on another client to a subfolder of the selected root, this file still gets automatically downloaded. This implies that the inheritance seems to work?

Could it be a UI problem (as discussed in #9010) instead of a problem with the underlying content policy/data structure?