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Quick start

This page takes a new PDrive installation from zero to one verified remote upload. Detailed maintenance belongs in Operations, not here.

Important

PDrive 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.

1. Install

The supported target is Linux Mint 22.x with Cinnamon, Nemo and a graphical login. Arch Linux and Ubuntu are active portability targets. The Arch Linux 0.8.2-1 candidate preserves the package baseline whose 0.8.0-1 build passed its clean Cinnamon/X11 desktop gate. It is ready for configured real-world review, but Arch is not yet a generally supported release target; see Distribution portability.

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

For the reviewed Arch candidate, download proton-drive-linux-0.8.2-1-any.pkg.tar.zst from the v0.8.2 release, verify its published SHA-256 and replace the source-install commands above with:

sudo pacman -U ./proton-drive-linux-0.8.2-1-any.pkg.tar.zst
pdrive-ui

The installer may request administrator approval once to create the owner-only /pdrive mountpoint. Personal rclone configuration, credentials, cache and state are preserved when the installer is run again.

2. Complete the setup wizard

On first launch, PDrive Control Center guides you through these steps:

  1. Check the required Mint, GTK, FUSE and Keyring components.
  2. Install missing packages through the system Polkit prompt when needed.
  3. Prepare the checksum-verified PDrive rclone build.
  4. Choose Auto-tune, Set manually or Unlimited for file transfers.
  5. Enter your Proton username, password and optional fresh six-digit 2FA code.
  6. Wait until the wizard confirms that /pdrive is mounted.

Auto-tune runs one disclosed, bounded Cloudflare test of about 72 MB, then assigns 60% of conservative measured upload and download rates to bulk file data. The remaining 40% stays available to Nemo metadata requests and other applications. Manual mode offers separate logarithmic upload and download controls; Unlimited leaves both directions open. These choices affect file payloads only, not Proton login, directory listing or other API metadata.

PDrive setup wizard showing separate manual upload and download controls

Credentials travel through private anonymous pipes. They never appear in process arguments, environment variables or logs.

3. Open Proton Drive in Nemo

Select Open PDrive folder in the Control Center. Nemo opens /pdrive, the single owner-only filesystem backed by your Proton Drive account. The separate Open Proton Drive web action is for account settings and workflows that do not belong to the mount.

PDrive Control Center showing a ready mount

4. Verify the first upload

  1. Copy one small test file into /pdrive with Nemo.
  2. Open Transfers and watch the file move through Active and Queue.
  3. Wait until Active is zero, Queue is empty and the file appears under Recently completed with Upload and Completed badges. Successful uploads remain visible there for up to 24 hours across a normal restart.
  4. For important data, also verify the file in the official Proton Drive web client.

A finished Nemo copy means the local VFS cache accepted the data. It does not mean Proton has committed the remote file yet. Dirty upload data stays protected in the local cache across ordinary service recovery.

5. Know the protected login state

When Proton requires a fresh login, PDrive stops automatic retries before they can repeatedly hit the account. The Overview shows the protected state and the Control Center offers one guided reauthorization.

PDrive Control Center protecting a Proton authentication cooldown

If Proton rate-limits login attempts, wait until the displayed retry time. Do not bypass the cooldown with manual service starts. The encrypted configuration and local upload cache remain untouched while login is paused.

Reauthorization keeps the same account. To intentionally move /pdrive to a different Proton account, first wait for zero Active transfers, an empty Queue and no pending VFS data, then use Preferences → Account → Change Proton account …. PDrive gives the candidate a separate cache namespace; it never relabels the previous account's cached files as belonging to the new account.

Where to go next