Proton Drive

Proton's whole purpose is to provide secure and private alternatives to common web services. Proton Drive brings that vision to the cloud storage and file-sharing space. It delivers the same privacy and security that Proton users have come to expect from other Proton apps, like Proton Mail and Proton VPN. No one at the company can access files you upload to Proton Drive—they're fully encrypted first. That comes at a cost, in both price and upload speeds. Still, if privacy is what you value most, then Proton Drive should be the first cloud storage service you try. If not, go for one of our Editors' Choice winners: Microsoft OneDrive, which is best overall, IDrive for value, or Google Drive if you're primarily a Google Apps user.

How Much Does Proton Drive Cost?

Proton Drive's free account gives you 5GB of storage, which is about average. Microsoft OneDrive, IDrive, and Sync also give you 5GB for free. Google Drive comes with three times more (15GB for free), though it's shared with Gmail and Google Photos.

Proton Drive Plus costs $4.99 per month or $47.88 per year, and it increases the storage to 200GB. You can get 500GB as part of Proton Unlimited, a package that costs $12.99 per month or $118.88 per year and includes Proton Mail, Proton Calendar, Proton VPN, and Proton Pass; the storage space is shared with Proton Mail. Proton Family is a plan for up to five people and gives you 3TB of storage to share—it costs $29.99 per month or $287.88 per year.

These rates are considerably more expensive per gigabyte than most of the competition. IDrive has one of the best deals around, at $79.50 per year for 5TB. Google One, which adds storage space to Google Drive accounts, online discounts, and photo editing tools, starts at $1.99 per month for 100GB. You pay $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year for a Premium Google One subscription that gets you 2TB of storage. 

Apple iCloud charges $9.99 per month for 2TB of storage, but you can get 50GB for 99 cents per month and 200GB for $2.99 per month with iCloud+; it includes a faux VPN called Private Relay that only works in Safari and a custom email domain.

Microsoft charges $69.99 per year for a Microsoft 365 Individual account with 1GB of OneDrive storage. Families of up to six people can pay $99.99 per year for a total of 6TB. Both those accounts include installable productivity apps like Word, Excel, and Outlook. 

Proton Drive cannot even come close to competing with any of these companies in terms of price per gigabyte. However, Proton's aim isn't to win on price. It's to provide an alternative to these other cloud storage services built around privacy and security first.

How Secure Is Proton Drive?

Proton Drive's core feature is security. Files are encrypted before being uploaded to Proton Drive, and the encryption keys are generated on your device. This means the company itself doesn't have access to your files, which also means that any hacker who breaks into the Proton Drive server (or any individual who has access to the server in question) can't view your files or even see the filenames.

(Credit: Proton/PCMag)

You can read more about Proton Drive's encryption procedures on its website, but the summary is that everything is truly locked down. Proton also points out that the company is headquartered in Switzerland and, therefore, protected by the country's strong privacy laws. Proton customers have legal protections in Switzerland that prevent law enforcement from requesting access to their data without going through the courts first. Proton Drive makes a compelling case if security and privacy are your top priorities. Most other cloud storage and syncing services don't lock down information to this extent, SpiderOak One Backup being an exception. IDrive and Sync have an option to enable private encryption keys, but it's not on by default.

Another way Proton helps you stay private is by allowing you to pay for your account in cash by sending dollars, euros, or Swiss francs to a mailing address on Proton's website. You can pay with bitcoin or by bank if you prefer, or the more traditional way with a credit or debit card.

Which Platforms Is Proton Drive Available On?

Proton Drive has mobile apps for iPhone, iPad, and Android, and a desktop app for Windows and macOS. There is no Linux client.

Proton Drive also runs in the web browser. The company recommends using a privacy-centric browser such as Firefox, Brave, or Tor, though Proton Drive is also compatible with more mainstream browsers, including Google Chrome, Safari, Microsoft Edge, and Opera. 

(Credit: Proton/PCMag)

Getting Started With Proton Drive

Before you can use Proton Drive, you must sign up for an account. If you already use Proton Mail or Proton VPN, the same account can work for Proton Drive. Otherwise, you need to sign up and choose your plan. Note that you do not need to enter payment details if you opt for the free version. 

Next, you choose a username, which will double as your email address if you use Proton Mail. Then, you create a password and provide some recovery details. Finally, the app asks you to choose a color scheme for the web version of the app.

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You can start uploading files immediately—individual files or entire folders— by dragging them onto your browser or clicking New Upload. Files you upload are encrypted in your browser before being uploaded to Proton's servers. 

Windows and Mac users should also install the desktop application. The Windows version can sync files from anywhere on your computer. It asks if you want to back up your Desktop, Documents, and other folders, while also providing you access to your Proton Drive files from Windows Explorer. The Mac version, likely owing to Apple’s security policies, only offers access to your Proton Drive files from Finder. In either case, you can choose whether particular files are available for offline access. 

Online Editing for Documents Only and Limited Previews

Proton Drive recently added online document editing, a feature that could become an alternative to Google Docs. You can create new documents to collaborate on them or you can open any uploaded docx file to convert it. You don't get spreadsheets or presentations, but it’s a start. 

The online document editor is the only option you have for editing any kind of file in Proton Drive’s web version. If you want to edit anything else—an image, say, or an audio file—you have to download the file, edit it, and then reupload it. It's a lot easier if you install the Windows or Mac application because you can open files and edit them using the appropriate desktop software, and your changes automatically sync. 

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Proton Drive lets you collaborate with other Proton Drive users by sharing a folder, but other than the document editing feature there are no collaboration tools. You can’t comment on a file the way you can in other cloud services, like Google Drive or Dropbox.

A limitation of the web version is the preview functionality. You get previews for images, videos, audio files, and PDFs, but not proprietary formats like Microsoft Office documents, as you do in Google Drive and, of course, OneDrive. From the web interface, you can play MP3s and even FLACs.

Sharing Files in Proton Drive

Proton Drive gives you two ways of sharing files: directly with other Proton users or indirectly using a public link. You can right-click any file or folder from Proton Drive's web version and select Share to see your options. When you share directly with another Proton user, you can assign roles, meaning you control whether they may edit files in your folder or not. With Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, and the web apps related to them (Word Online, Google Docs, and so forth), you can collaborate with anyone. They are much more open systems in that way. Proton Drive, however, is more restrictive, but that's fitting given its emphasis on privacy.

(Credit: Proton/PCMag)

Another way you can share files in Proton Drive is by creating a public link and sending it to anyone, which all cloud storage services do. Optionally, you can password-protect your shared files and set an expiration date for the link. Again, that's a fairly standard feature, though in some apps, like Dropbox, you have to be a paying subscriber to get them. Note that the Windows and Mac versions of Proton Drive do not have sharing features. You need to log into the web version to share a file.

Proton Drive's Mobile App

As mentioned, you can install the Proton Drive mobile app for Android, iPhone, and iPad. I tested it on an iPhone. The app is useful for both browsing files you already uploaded and uploading files directly. You have the option to sync any files or folders to be available on your device offline. It's also possible to lock down access to the application using either a PIN or biometric tools like a fingerprint scanner or FaceID. 

The mobile app also supports backing up photos, meaning you could use Proton Drive as an encrypted alternative to Apple and Google’s photo backup service. OneDrive, IDrive, Google Drive, and Dropbox, among others, all have an option to automatically back up photos and videos from your mobile devices, so it’s great to see that Proton Drive does, too.

How Fast Is Proton Drive With Uploading?

How fast is Proton Drive? It depends on your computer's processing power. I uploaded 284GB of files from a Windows 11 computer with a 13th Gen Intel Core i7-13700 2.10 GHz processor. The process took 10 hours and 33 minutes, which works out to 1GB of data uploaded every 2 minutes and 12 seconds. It's much faster than the results I got in 2022 using a much older computer with a cheap, old processor—back then, 1GB took 8 minutes and 16 seconds. 

It makes sense that I got much faster times using a newer processor because  Proton Drive encrypts files locally before uploading them, meaning the better the processor, the faster the upload process. Since encryption is core to the entire idea behind Proton Drive, keep this in mind. 

For context, the Windows 11 computer I use has a mechanical hard drive and is attached to my local network via Ethernet. My home upload speed is 100Mbps. I live on the West Coast of the United States, far from Proton's European servers, which may also be a factor. Your speeds may vary for a variety of reasons.

Verdict: Steady and Safe

Proton has been deliberate about rolling out its storage service, slowly adding features and improving it over time. In the two years since PCMag first reviewed Proton Drive, the service has added file-sharing options and a Mac client. This slow and steady development, combined with the security and privacy advantages, make Proton Drive an excellent alternative for those willing to pay more for storage and who don't need every feature under the sun. If you're more concerned with price, try Editors' Choice winner IDrive. The best overall cloud storage and file-syncing service for most people is Microsoft OneDrive, and Google Drive is the top option for people who primarily stick to the Google ecosystem.