All the best pre-built NAS enclosures come with an array of first-party apps that are made to work perfectly with the brand’s hardware. Be it at home or work, these apps are often more than what you need to make the most of your NAS. However, if you want to go beyond the basics and push your NAS to its limits, there are quite a few advanced tools that you can try out. While some of these little-known apps for NAS enclosures can improve your existing workflow, others will introduce new functionalities to make your life easier. This is our handpicked selection of unsung apps that will take your NAS experience to the next level.

5 Qsirch

Google Search for your NAS

Have a QNAP NAS? Then you better be using Qsirch! The company rightly calls it the Google-like tool for your NAS. It is indeed that powerful at promptly finding and bringing up the right file you’re looking for. Many of us start with a small, neatly laid-out folder system which quickly turns into a monster of a complicated grid of infinitely nestled folders and files. That’s when you need a tool that can dig through your years of file dumps — and smartly. It does such a great job, we wish that other NAS makers also learned this from QNAP.

There is already OCR support in Qsirch for reading any text in your photos to help it show things like receipts and ID cards. But its AI-powered semantic search capabilities are where the real skill lies. It can analyze things in your images, just like Google Photos, to enable searches like ‘a person wearing a blue top against a green background.’ And if you install its app on Windows or Mac, you will be able to use the same search prowess right from your computer’s file browser to look up things on the mounted storage. All Qsirch features that matter are available in the free plan.

4 Duplicati

Like a superpower, duplicate without limits

Brands like Synology and QNAP often have their own solution for off-site backups to another NAS to ensure data safety. But as you’d expect, their tools work only on their respective NAS models, making cross-device backups a tad difficult and forcing you to stay within their ecosystem. Duplicati addresses that by offering a cross-platform solution that works on a variety of NAS models and even allows backups to a long list of cloud storage services, too. While there is a native app for it, you can always run it in a docker container if direct compatibility isn’t available for your NAS brand.

Duplicati looks modern and is quite easy to use from the get-go. You can set up scheduled backups in any combination of sources and destinations, and it will get the job done without requiring any routine intervention. More importantly, backups can be secured with AES-256 encryption to ensure the data integrity of your critical business files through the entire pipeline. What adds to its trust is that Duplicati is an open-source tool, which already makes it better than many of its closed-source alternatives. It has a pretty generous free tier with the option to upgrade at a monthly fee of just $5 per device should you need it.

3 *arr apps

You won’t err when you have *arr

You are probably familiar with Plex. It helps you manage your media files easily and arrange them in a neat Netflix-like layout for a superior movie-watching experience. Unfortunately, it only handles the last leg of the problem, and you still need to manually take care of media sourcing for Plex to then do its part. This means you have to tediously go through the process of finding and downloading the latest episode of your favorite show as soon as it drops. Radarr and Sonarr automate that part for you as well, so that all you’re left to handle is simply sit back on the couch and watch. You may still want to make a bucket of popcorn though.

There are a bunch of arr apps for multiple media types, but Radarr (for movies) and Sonarr (for TV shows) should be sufficient for most of us. You just have to add upcoming movies or TV shows to the list, as you do on your watchlist, and it will automatically download them for you as soon as they’re available in good quality. The process is automated to the point that it can even handle download failures on its own. A good thing is that their native apps are available for Synology and QNAP, so you won’t necessarily need to mess with dockers for their installation.

2 Jellyfin

Media management, but far more efficient

Plex is the default media management software across the board — it is compatible with every device you can think of across client and server options. But over time, its client apps have become quite bloated with full-blown cross-service watchlist management, Plex’s own free streaming service, music, live TV, and whatnot. What’s worse is that a lot of its features are locked behind a $5-a-month paywall. Enter its entirely free and open-source alternative: Jellyfin. It addresses many of Plex’s limitations, including the frustrating 5-minute streaming limit on mobile devices.

Without any fees associated, you still get some of Plex’s smartest features, like auto arrangement of your files with linkage to the right media page, complete with cast details and summaries. Jellyfin puts extra stress on user privacy, since the app doesn’t need to send your data to a remote server for any of its functions. Its client apps are available across platforms, including Android TV. However, to install the server app in your NAS, you will have to run it inside a docker container, which should be quite a lot more resource-efficient.

1 Vaultwarden

Take control of your most sensitive data

There are tons of password managers out there trying to get your loyalty. While Bitwarden makes a perfect choice for most regular users, if you’re technically inclined enough to set up your own password manager, you can look at Vaultwarden. With Vaultwarden installed on your NAS, you will be in control of your password data, which happens to be the most sensitive kind, unlike other mainstream alternatives that store it in a remote server. The good news for you is that it is completely open-source and free to use with no usage or app limits whatsoever.

One could wonder what its benefits are over Bitwarden, which you can also install on your NAS for taking data ownership. There's the price advantage, of course. But a big benefit of self-hosted Vaultwarden is that it is much more lightweight and doesn’t take up a lot of resources on your NAS — in fact, it can even run on a Raspberry Pi without trouble. Vaultwarden gets you a client app, and no matter which desktop OS, phone brand, or browser you’re used to, you’ll find its app available for any platform you may need. The company has clear instructions for its docker installation, so what are you waiting for to get started?

Make the most of your NAS

A network-attached storage unit is designed to liberate data access across devices and platforms, with your NAS acting as a central storage point. But NAS makers often try to lock you into their ecosystem that is comprised of both first-party hardware and software. Sure, brands like Synology, QNAP, and others have a solid suite of apps that do come in handy, but that shouldn’t stop you from trying programs outside of that. Setting up docker containers opens you up to a whole world of apps that may not be available natively for your NAS brand. That way you can truly unlock the potential of your NAS’s hardware and really make the most of it with third-party apps and services, like the ones listed here.