WebDAV & rclone: Fixing the Most Common Connection Errors

Mounting your vault as a drive is simple once it's working — but WebDAV clients tend to report generic errors for very specific causes. Here's what's actually behind the ones you'll most likely hit, and the fix for each.

"Authentication required" or 401 Unauthorized

This means one of two things: WebDAV isn't enabled on your account yet, or the client is sending the wrong credential.

• WebDAV must be turned on first. It's off by default. Enable it from your Profile to generate a token.
• Use the token, not your account password. WebDAV logs in with a separate 72-character token, not your real password — see why it works that way. If you typed your account password into Finder, Explorer, or rclone, that's the 401.
• Regenerated tokens invalidate the old one instantly. If you hit "Regenerate" for any reason, every client still configured with the previous token starts failing immediately — reconfigure it with the new one.

507 Insufficient Storage

This status code covers two distinct limits, and the client usually won't tell you which one you hit:

Either way, the fix is the same: free up space (delete something) or move to a plan with more room. See our storage quota guide for what each plan includes.

"Folder appears empty" or a subfolder never shows up

The vault's WebDAV layer currently supports one level of folders — root, plus folders directly inside it. A folder created inside another folder won't be created or listed over WebDAV. If you're syncing a deeply nested local tree, flatten it to one level before pointing rclone or Finder at it, or use the browser vault directly, which supports full nested folders.

macOS Finder fails an upload with a generic error

Finder's "Connect to Server" client locks a file before every write and expects that lock request to succeed. LifetimeCloud's WebDAV server acknowledges locks (so Finder proceeds) but doesn't enforce them across requests — each account is single-user, so there's nothing to protect against concurrent edits. If Finder still throws an error on a specific file, it's almost always a transient network hiccup rather than a locking conflict; retrying the copy, or switching to rclone or Cyberduck for that transfer, resolves it.

Windows reports a file-size limit

Windows' built-in WebDAV client (WebClient) defaults to a conservative upload size cap unrelated to your plan. Raise it once via:

reg add "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WebClient\Parameters" /v FileSizeLimitInBytes /t REG_DWORD /d 4294967295 /f
net stop WebClient && net start WebClient

Full setup steps for each OS are in our WebDAV & rclone mounting guide.

Uploading a file with the same name silently replaces the old one

This isn't a bug to troubleshoot — it's how PUT works over WebDAV. Uploading a file with a name that already exists in that folder replaces it, but the previous content is kept as a version: for files overwritten over WebDAV the last 3 versions are kept for 30 days (changes made from the website or the app keep their versions for 1 year), and you can restore them from the file's version history in the vault. If the old file was empty (0 bytes), no version is kept. Deleting over WebDAV is different: it is permanent and does not go to the trash. If you're syncing with a tool like rclone, use a sync or copy command deliberately rather than assuming duplicates get renamed.