PDrive — Proton Drive for Linux

A careful Proton Drive mount for Linux desktops — native file-manager access, resilient uploads and a live GTK control center, all around one rclone process. Linux Mint is the reference platform; Arch and Ubuntu portability is underway.

_{Proton Drive at a glance, framed by Active Window Highlight.}

Transfers, queue and protected VFS cache	Reviewable issues, service diagnostics and bounded health history

Use Proton Drive directly in your file manager at /pdrive. The toolkit starts the mount after desktop login, protects its encrypted rclone configuration with GNOME Keyring and provides a native GTK control center for the details that matter.

Important

This is an independent community project, not an official Proton product. rclone labels its Proton Drive backend as beta. Keep an independent backup of important data.

Highlights

• Writable, owner-only /pdrive mount with a GTK file-manager bookmark.
• English and German GTK control center with tray support.
• Upload and download-traffic graphs with a configurable live interval.
• Active transfers, upload queue with a smoothed remaining-time estimate, service diagnostics, bounded health history and reviewable issue evidence.
• Clear Proton cloud used/total/free, local free-space and VFS-cache values.
• Independent upload/download file-data limits, guided connection tuning and guarded upload-slot, cache-retention, metadata-refresh and restart controls.
• Conservative health monitoring with desktop notifications.
• Guided first setup, contextual same-account reauthorization, guarded account switching with isolated cache namespaces, encrypted credentials and signed rclone updates.

This is an on-demand filesystem, not a full offline mirror. Reads download data when needed; writes remain protected in the local VFS cache until uploaded.

Install

The supported target is Linux Mint 22.x with Cinnamon, Nemo and a normal graphical login. Arch Linux and Ubuntu are the first portability targets. The Arch Linux 0.8.0-1 package candidate has passed its clean Cinnamon/X11 desktop gate and is attached to the v0.8.0 GitHub Release for configured real-world review; it is not yet a generally supported Arch target. See the distribution portability plan and the privacy-safe real desktop release gates.

git clone https://github.com/oss-singularity/proton-drive-linux.git
cd proton-drive-linux
./install.sh
pdrive-ui

Arch reviewers can download the proton-drive-linux-0.8.0-1-any.pkg.tar.zst asset from the v0.8.0 release, verify the SHA-256 published in its release notes and install it with:

sudo pacman -U ./proton-drive-linux-0.8.0-1-any.pkg.tar.zst
pdrive-ui

The native package installs immutable application files below /usr while credentials, configuration, state, rclone and every VFS cache namespace remain inside the user profile.

The installer may request sudo once to create the owner-only /pdrive directory. On first launch, the setup wizard checks prerequisites, can install missing supported distribution packages through Polkit, prepares PDrive's verified Proton-capable rclone, offers automatic or manual connection headroom and then guides you through username, password and optional 2FA. Automatic tuning uses a bounded Cloudflare speed test and reserves capacity for browsing and other applications. Credentials never appear in command arguments or environment variables.

If Proton later requires a fresh login, PDrive stops automatic service retries, shows one actionable notification and offers reauthorization directly in the Control Center. The existing account name and protected VFS upload cache remain untouched while the replacement login is verified. A real Proton rate limit is distinguished from rejected credentials and persists a local retry time so no UI or manual service start can create another premature login attempt.

For an intentional migration to another Proton account, open Preferences → Account → Change Proton account …. PDrive refuses while any transfer, queued upload or Dirty cache file remains, tests the candidate login in isolation, and mounts it only through a fresh anonymous cache namespace. If activation fails, the previous encrypted configuration, authentication state and cache namespace are restored automatically.

A deliberate account action, separate from contextual reauthorization	Full native credentials, explicit confirmation and cache-isolation promise

Existing configuration, credentials, cache and state are preserved when the installer is run again.

_{Approachable automatic tuning, with independent expert controls when wanted.}

Start using PDrive

Complete the first-run wizard, select Open PDrive folder, and work in /pdrive through Nemo. A finished file-manager copy means the protected local cache accepted the write; wait for zero Active transfers and an empty Queue before treating it as remotely complete.

• Quick start — installation, first login, /pdrive and one verified upload.
• Everyday use — transfers, cache, notifications, bandwidth and safe routine operation.
• Troubleshooting — symptom-led help when something looks wrong.

The same pages are available offline from Menu → Documentation … in the Control Center. Detailed controls and maintenance remain in the Operations handbook.

Update

Until an APT/Software Manager release channel exists, update the toolkit with:

cd proton-drive-linux
git pull --ff-only
./install.sh

PDrive installs a pinned, checksum-verified rclone build published from its public source fork. It contains the upstream fix for rclone #9722, the API bridge worker fix proposed in Proton-API-Bridge #8, a bounded retry of only transiently failed encrypted blocks tracked in PDrive #42, and the Proton file-data limiter tracked in rclone #9832. The limiter leaves metadata browsing outside bulk transfer limits. The weekly updater stays on that reviewed PDrive build until this project publishes a replacement and never restarts an active mount. The optional official Proton Drive CLI is a separate client and is not required by this project.

Uninstall

./uninstall.sh --uninstall

Uninstall is refused while queued or Dirty VFS data exists. Personal rclone configuration, Keyring secret, cache, logs and /pdrive remain available for recovery unless you deliberately remove them later.

Documentation and development

• Quick start — the shortest path from installation to a verified remote upload.
• Everyday use — concise guidance for normal Nemo and Control Center workflows.
• Operations handbook — every helper, configuration and safe operating procedure.
• Troubleshooting — symptom-led diagnosis and guarded recovery.
• Development guide — architecture, security, testing, language, CI and release conventions.
• Distribution portability — support tiers, Arch/Ubuntu adapters, efficient container tests and packaging gates.
• Real desktop release gates — privacy-safe target reports and the clean installation checklist.
• Security policy — private reporting, supported versions and explicit trust boundaries.

Contributions are welcome. Run make check before opening a pull request; both Functional checks and Super-Linter are intended to be required checks.

Limitations

• Proton and rclone backend behavior can change independently of this project.
• There is no per-folder “always available offline” feature.
• A same-user process can stop a same-user FUSE mount.
• Keep independent backups and verify important remote writes.

License

Licensed under GPL-3.0-or-later. See LICENSE.

References

• rclone Proton Drive backend
• rclone mount and VFS cache
• Official Proton Drive CLI

A personal note from Claudiu & Codex

We — Claudiu & Codex — loved turning a stubborn real-world mount into something observable, careful and genuinely pleasant to use. Made with love for people on this beautiful world who want Linux to feel like home. 💜