I recently heard about the push to integrate AI into all Proton products, so I will be looking into alternatives. For a product that prides itself on encryption and security, this seems like a bizarre decision, but all I can do is go elsewhere.

The fact that I can only select a single file from my files app at a time is very frustrating and extremely time-consuming. Also no ability to transfer full folders from files app. Then you can only select 10 photos at a time? Why have a file storage app when transferring files is an absolute pain? Please add these simple features

I did like it until support for IOS 16 was dropped even for paying customers.

Great service; I love Proton to death and use every service they offer, but not being able to upload multiple files at a time is one of the dumbest things I’ve seen in a files app. Why on Earth should I have to upload one-by-one when I have dozens of files on my phone with no other way of backing them up safely? Also, PLEASE stop pushing for me to backup my photos to Proton Drive because I’m never going to turn on auto-backups for my photos ever. It’s dumb and a waste of space. If I wanted to back up my photos, I’d rather I choose the photos individually….. oh but I can’t do that because I can’t upload more than one damn file at a time.

Proton promises a great service, however it’s a bit of a trap. They lock you in and then through intentionally malicious design try to keep you locked in. I subscribed for years and was an early adopter. Eventually, I went with Apple who also offers end to end encryption through iCloud. You have to keep paying Proton if you want email forwarding. You also have to painfully remove each file from Proton Drive in order to free up storage to the below 5GB free tier which limits you in several ways when you are downgraded. Basically the front door only opens one way which is not what you want from a premium service that claims to care about your data. Per the developer response, because I don’t think they understand: I don’t expect anything from a service I no longer pay for. The problem is that it isn’t easy to offload my data or to leave your service. It makes me far less likely to come back if you make it easy to join and intentionally hard to leave (even by omission). If I could forward my emails, easily free up unused storage, etc I may consider coming back. Now, I won’t. Downgrading this review because this entrapment seems essential to their platform.

I like the service so far. The only gripe I have is that Photo backup and management is unreliable. I tried it on Desktop and got duplicates and I tried it on Mobile and it is missing several photos on my phone. I wised it was similar to OneDrive where the photos directory was directly accessible to manage and organize and photos shows the photos in the folder.

Know this before you commit: if you pay through Apple, you can't buy standalone add-ons like Lumo Plus. No option on the web dashboard, none in the app, and support offers no workaround — no invoice, no payment link, no migration path. 6 hours for a template reply. Then 12+ hours of silence. Ticket #[EMD0XX-353V4]. Still waiting… Good products. Billing and support are terrible.

I am committed to de-Googling and de-Dropboxing myself. I am committed to ensuring that only I have access to my files. Hence, why I’ve made the jump into the Proton ecosystem. That said, Proton Drive has some shortcomings. First and most basically, one cannot search for files using the mobile app. This is a severe flaw and makes the app nearly unusable on a mobile device. I have many tens of thousands of files, and I cannot always remember where they live in my extensive folder hierarchy. Perhaps there is some technical reason related to E2EE that search hasn’t been implemented, but it’s not impossible to design the feature even given that constraint. Search works fine in Proton Mail and Calendar. Second, the photo upload and sharing functionality is immature. The inability to smoothly import from Google Photos and preserve metadata, albums, and the like means that Proton Drive is a wholly inadequate substitute. Apps like Ente are far superior, and even have E2EE. Third, the app has some quirky behavior. For example, if a file has not been locally downloaded, tapping it once doesn’t both download and open. One has to tap it again to get it to open. And uploading files to the mobile app is hit-or-miss: I’d say that about one in ten tries fails, and the file upload has to be re-attempted.

Not being able to search for items in my Drive is a big oversight.

It states “preview for this file type is not supported” HOWEVER when I upload it individually it works. What’s the point of uploading lots of files if it doesn’t even upload properly? Be careful everyone when uploading files, especially on a Mac.