Turn any Mac into a personal cloud storage server.
Browse, upload, preview, and share files from any device — no subscriptions, no third parties.

Install • Features • Managing • Configuration • Development

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Why MiniNAS?

You already own the hardware. A Mac Mini with a couple of USB SSDs is more storage than most cloud plans offer — and it's yours. MiniNAS gives you a clean web interface to manage it all, accessible from your phone, tablet, or any browser.

• No monthly fees. Your data lives on your drives, not someone else's servers.
• No file size limits. Upload anything — resumable uploads handle multi-gigabyte files without breaking a sweat.
• No apps to install. It's a web app. Works on macOS, iOS, Android, Windows — any device with a browser.
• No passwords to remember. Sign in with Touch ID, Face ID, or your device's biometrics via Passkeys.

Features

File Management

• Browse files across multiple USB drives from a single interface
• List and grid views with file-type icons
• Create folders, rename, move, and delete
• Breadcrumb navigation with full path history

Uploads

• Drag-and-drop files or entire folders
• Resumable uploads — pause, resume, or recover from network interruptions
• Per-file progress tracking with cancel support
• No file size limits

Preview & Search

• Inline preview for images, video, audio, PDFs, and text files
• Auto-generated thumbnails for images and video
• Search files by name across all your drives instantly

Sharing

• Generate share links for any file
• Optional password protection
• Set expiration times and download limits
• Share links work without requiring the recipient to log in

Security

• Passkey authentication (WebAuthn) — no passwords, just biometrics
• All API routes are session-protected
• Path traversal prevention on every file operation
• Rate limiting on authentication endpoints

WebDAV

• Mount volumes as network drives on any OS
• App-specific tokens for secure access (no session cookies)
• Works with macOS Finder, Windows Explorer, and Linux file managers

Works Everywhere

• Installable as a PWA on iOS and Android home screens
• Designed for mobile and desktop
• Dark interface that looks great on any screen size

Installation

Homebrew (recommended)

brew tap theAlexPatin/mininas
brew install mininas

Setup

MiniNAS uses Tailscale for secure remote access. The setup wizard will walk you through it:

mininas setup

This will:

1. Check your Tailscale connection
2. Configure HTTPS certificates
3. Generate secrets and pick random ports
4. Set up Tailscale Serve for HTTPS access

Start the server

brew services start mininas

Then open the URL shown during setup to register your passkey and start using MiniNAS.

Add volumes

# Interactive — discovers mounted drives
mininas volume add

# Explicit
mininas volume add ssd1 "SSD 1" /Volumes/SSD1

Managing

Start / Stop

brew services start mininas     # Start the server
brew services stop mininas      # Stop the server
brew services restart mininas   # Restart the server

Update

brew upgrade mininas
brew services restart mininas

Or trigger an update from the web UI: Settings > Software Update > Update & Restart.

Reset

Wipe all data and re-run setup (your files on mounted volumes are not affected):

mininas start-fresh

Uninstall

mininas uninstall               # Remove all data (~/.mininas/)
brew uninstall mininas          # Remove the application

CLI Reference

mininas setup                              # Interactive guided setup
mininas server                             # Start the server (used by brew services)
mininas gateway                            # Show Tailscale gateway status

mininas volume list                        # List all volumes
mininas volume add                         # Interactive volume setup
mininas volume add <id> <label> <path>     # Add a volume explicitly
mininas volume remove <id>                 # Remove a volume
mininas volume visibility <id> public|private

mininas user list                          # List registered users
mininas user delete <id>                   # Delete a user

mininas invite create <username>           # Create an invite token
mininas invite list                        # List invites
mininas invite delete <id>                 # Delete an invite

mininas start-fresh                        # Wipe data and re-run setup
mininas uninstall                          # Remove all MiniNAS data

Configuration

Configuration is stored in ~/.mininas/config.json and is auto-generated by mininas setup. You can also set environment variables or use a .env file in the project root for development.

Variable	Default	Description
PORT	auto	API server port (random high port)
SESSION_SECRET	auto	Secret for signing session tokens
CLI_SECRET	auto	Secret for authenticating CLI commands
BASE_URL	—	Tailscale HTTPS URL
RP_ID	derived	WebAuthn Relying Party ID (derived from BASE_URL)
RP_ORIGIN	derived	Frontend URL for WebAuthn verification
DB_PATH	~/.mininas/data/mininas.db	SQLite database location
THUMBNAIL_DIR	~/.mininas/data/thumbnails	Where generated thumbnails are cached
UPLOAD_STAGING_DIR	~/.mininas/data/uploads	Temporary directory for in-progress uploads
WEB_DIST_DIR	—	Path to built web assets (set by Homebrew)
MININAS_VERSION	dev	Version string (set by Homebrew)

Development

git clone https://github.com/theAlexPatin/MiniNAS.git
cd MiniNAS
pnpm install
cp .env.example .env
# Generate secrets: openssl rand -hex 32 → SESSION_SECRET and CLI_SECRET
pnpm dev

This starts the API (port 3001) and web UI (port 4321). Open http://localhost:4321 to register as admin.

Requires Node.js 22+ and pnpm. See DEVELOPMENT.md for architecture docs, testing, and contribution guidelines.

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Built for personal use. No telemetry, no analytics, no cloud dependencies.
Your files, your hardware, your rules.