Proton Drive

Proton Drive encrypts your files on your device before they reach the cloud. That means Proton itself has no way to read what you store. The service comes from Proton AG, the Swiss company behind Proton Mail, founded by CERN scientists in 2014 and now controlled by the non-profit Proton Foundation.

The free plan gives you 5 GB of encrypted storage with access to Proton Docs, a collaborative editor that keeps your documents encrypted even during real-time editing. Paid plans start at $4.99/month for 200 GB, and the Unlimited plan ($12.99/month) bundles 500 GB with Proton Mail, VPN, Calendar, and Pass. File sharing works with password protection and expiry dates, and there is no file size limit.

Desktop sync is available on Windows and macOS, with mobile apps for iOS and Android that support automatic photo backup. All apps are open source and have been independently audited by Securitum. Proton stores data in its own data centers in Switzerland and Germany, outside the Five Eyes surveillance alliance.

Worth knowing

Proton Drive costs more per gigabyte than Google Drive or Dropbox. Encryption adds overhead to batch uploads, so transferring hundreds of files at once runs slower than unencrypted alternatives. There is no native Linux client yet. Collaboration features exist but are not as deep as Google Workspace. If you already use Proton Mail, Drive fits naturally into that ecosystem. If you only need storage, weigh the privacy benefits against the price and feature gap.