I wonder why you can’t access remote WebDAV store directly through Cryptomator. According to the screenshots I can see in Google Play Store, it is possible in the Android App.
It would make things easier for beginners, if they can have all settings in Cryptomator rather than mounting the vault first manually in the OS (Finder or Windows Explorer) before they can finally unlock the vault in Cryptomator.
This is why I would recommend using rclone even for beginners, since you have all configuration in one place. You run your “rclone serve webdav” (or “rclone mount”) and you are good to go.
Is there a conscious reason why the Desktop App of Cryptomator can’t mount WebDAV directly, while Android and iOS Apps can?
The Android App can access the vault directly, while on Windows or macOS you can only browse for the vault locally on your computer. With other words, you have to mount the vault first, before you can open it in Cryptomator. Why is it? Wouldn’t it be nice if Cryptomator can access the remote vault directly and stores its related credentials for you, without jumping between Finder/Windows Explorer and Cryptomator?
Cryptomator Desktop was designed to work with as many online storage provider as possible.
The best way to achieve that is to rely on their existing connection/sync process and not implement various different interfaces to directly connect with them. Many providers don’t even provide any API or WebDAV connection at all, so these providers would not work together with a direct connection cryptomator app. This is why the desktop app is designed that way.
However: when it comes to mobile apps it is often not feasible to have a vault local, or to download it completely, so in this case the design was made with focus on data transfer and local space usage. and that lead to the direct connection design. Yes, this means that the mobile apps are not usable with every storage provider out there.
Besides that, both design need to have the vaults added first in cryptomator before you can open a vault. Your screenshot only shows the process of connection to your storage provider. It does not connect to a vault. You have to add vaults behind these connections.
If you want to access your cryptomator vault on your desktop directly online, see here for a solution:
I kind of understand the idea and I have got what you said. Anyway, if the code is available for the mobile App, it won’t hurt to also support WebDAV as an open standard.
I also assume that a direct support would make it more reliable to work with multiple instances of Cryptomator in the same WebDAV based vault.
