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How to use Contabo to store your files

Contabo offers affordable cloud infrastructure and storage solutions hosted in Germany and other EU locations. Currently (October 2025) they are offering 250 GB for roughly 3 € per month, which sound very reasonable. For users in the European Union or those concerned about GDPR compliance, Contabo provides a strong alternative to US-based cloud providers by keeping your data under strict EU privacy and data protection laws.

In this tutorial, we’ll walk through how to set up Contabo Object Storage as a location in TagSpaces, allowing you to manage, tag, and browse your files directly from Contabo’s S3-compatible storage.

Creating a bucket​

  1. Create a Contabo account at contabo.com and log in.
  2. Navigate to Storage → Object Storage.
  3. Click Create bucket to make a new storage bucket.
Creating a bucket
Creating a bucket

Once created, you’ll see your bucket appear in the bucket list:

Get the bucket URL from the bucket list
Get the bucket URL from the bucket list

You can optionally adjust the bucket properties such as name purchase space, auto-scaling, and other options:

The settings of the new bucket
The settings of the new bucket

Getting the access tokens​

To connect your bucket with external tools like TagSpaces, you’ll need API access with S3 credentials.

  1. Go to your Account → Security & Access section.
  2. Scroll down to find the S3 Object Storage Credentials area.
  3. There, you’ll find your Access Key and Secret Key — these will be required later.
The access key for your bucket in the account area
The access key for your bucket in the account area

Connecting the bucket to TagSpaces​

Now it’s time to connect your Contabo storage to TagSpaces.

  1. Open TagSpaces.
  2. Click the New button and select New Location.
  3. In the dialog, set the Location Type to Object Storage.
  4. Fill in the required fields:
    • Location name – any name you prefer
    • Bucket name – the name of your Contabo bucket
    • Access key and Secret key – from the previous step
    • URL – the endpoint from your bucket list
important

Remove the bucket name from the URL when entering it into TagSpaces, e.g.: https://eu2.contabostorage.com/.

Once everything is set, click OK to create the location.

Connecting the bucket as a location in TagSpaces
Connecting the bucket as a location in TagSpaces

You can now browse, tag, and organize your Contabo files directly in TagSpaces!

Creating additional users with restricted rights​

If you want to give others limited access to your buckets, Contabo allows creating additional user accounts.

  1. Go to Account → User Management.
  2. Click Create User.
  3. Enter the email address of the user who should have access.
  4. Choose the appropriate permission level:
    • Full access
    • Read only
    • Read and write
warning

These permissions apply globally to all buckets — per-bucket permissions are not yet supported.

Click Create to finalize the new user.

Creating an additional user with restricted rights
Creating an additional user with restricted rights

The new user can log into the Contabo admin console, navigate to
Account → Security & Access → S3 Object Storage Credentials, and obtain their own access and secret keys.

Conclusion​

By connecting Contabo Object Storage with TagSpaces, you can build your own privacy-respecting, self-managed cloud system — a personal alternative to Dropbox or Evernote.
You maintain full control over your data, stored safely under EU GDPR standards.

While Contabo’s management tools are still developing (for example, limited per-bucket permissions), it remains an excellent choice for users who value data sovereignty, cost efficiency, and GDPR compliance.

Congrats

You now have your own cloud-based TagSpaces location hosted in the EU!