A six-month trip, a Windows mini PC and the classic Jellyfin remote-upload puzzle
A recent post on r/jellyfin lays out a setup that will look familiar to plenty of self-hosters: Jellyfin installed directly on a Windows mini PC, media on external hard drives attached to that machine, and Nextcloud running in Docker alongside it. The author is about to leave home for six months for work and wants to keep watching, managing and adding to the library from the road.
The goal list is clear. Stream movies and shows remotely, upload new files from a phone or laptop, have those files land on the media drives, and let Jellyfin pick them up automatically. Reliability matters more than usual here, since there will be nobody at home to troubleshoot. The author also mentions trying Tailscale after seeing it recommended, without getting it working yet, and says they are not wedded to Nextcloud if something simpler does the job.
Where it breaks is the handoff between the two apps. Files added through Nextcloud don't end up in the Jellyfin library, and the author is unsure whether the problem is Docker configuration, folder paths, or how each application reaches the files. That is the right instinct. Jellyfin runs on Windows and sees the external drives directly; Nextcloud runs in a container, so the paths it writes to are not automatically the same paths Jellyfin scans. Until both apps point at the same storage, uploads will sit somewhere Jellyfin never looks.
This affects anyone mixing a native install with containerized services, and it matters because remote upload is the piece people usually discover last, often right before a trip. The thread is a request for beginner-friendly guidance, so the useful answer is less about specific tools and more about verifying the shared folder and path setup before trusting it.
Commentary for self-hosters
Treat this as a path-mapping problem first. Confirm which host folder the Nextcloud container actually writes to, then confirm that Jellyfin's library points at that same folder, and test with one small file before relying on it. If the container writes to a volume that isn't the drive Jellyfin scans, no amount of remote access will fix the library. Once the paths line up, Jellyfin's automatic detection should handle the rest.
For remote access, pick one approach and document it for yourself, because you won't be there to debug it. Whichever tool you choose, write down the steps and test from outside your home network before you leave. If you'd rather simplify, a single app that both accepts uploads and writes into a folder Jellyfin already watches is easier to keep running than two services that must agree on paths.
Finally, plan for unattended operation: check that the machine recovers after a reboot and that the drives mount with the same letters or paths every time. Six months is a long time for a setup that only works until the first power blip.
Source: r/jellyfin thread. If you want to round out a Jellyfin install, our Jellyfin plugins are built for legal, self-hosted libraries.