How to Use Proton Drive on Linux

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Proton Drive doesn’t yet have an official Linux client, but it can be integrated into the system using rclone. In this guide, I’ll walk you through the exact steps that worked for me on Pop!_OS, both for mounting Proton Drive as a local folder and for syncing files Dropbox-style.

Install Rclone

Install (and Ubuntu in general) with:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install rclone -y

If you prefer the latest version, you can also download it directly from the official GitHub repository.

Configure Proton Drive in Rclone

  1. Select n (new remote) and name it protondrive.
  2. Choose Proton Drive from the list.
  3. When asked Use auto config? → type y.
  4. A browser window will open → log in to your Proton account and authorize.
  5. Confirm the setup.

Run:

rclone config

Now Proton Drive is available inside rclone.

Method 1 – Mount Proton Drive as a Folder

Create a local folder:

mkdir -p ~/ProtonDrive

Mount the drive:

rclone mount protondrive: ~/ProtonDrive \
  --vfs-cache-mode full \
  --vfs-cache-max-age 1m \
  --dir-cache-time 30s \
  --poll-interval 15s \
  --daemon

You can now access Proton Drive directly in your file manager at ~/ProtonDrive.

To unmount:

fusermount -u ~/ProtonDrive

Method 2 – Dropbox-Style Sync (bisync)

If you’d rather work in a local folder and keep everything synced with the cloud, rclone bisync is the way to go.

Create local folder

mkdir -p ~/ProtonDropbox

Initial sync

rclone bisync ~/ProtonDropbox protondrive: --resync --verbose

Normal sync (manual)

rclone bisync ~/ProtonDropbox protondrive: --verbose

Automating the Sync

You can use cron to run it every 5 minutes:

crontab -e

Add this line:

*/5 * * * * rclone bisync ~/ProtonDropbox protondrive: --verbose >> ~/rclone-bisync.log 2>&1

Or, for a more robust setup, use systemd to run it automatically in the background.

Systemd service

File ~/.config/systemd/user/proton-bisync.service:

[Unit]
Description=Rclone bisync ProtonDrive
After=network-online.target

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/usr/bin/rclone bisync /home/%u/ProtonDropbox protondrive: --verbose

Systemd timer

File ~/.config/systemd/user/proton-bisync.timer:

[Unit]
Description=Run ProtonDrive bisync every 5 minutes

[Timer]
OnBootSec=2m
OnUnitActiveSec=5m
Unit=proton-bisync.service

[Install]
WantedBy=timers.target

Enable:

systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable --now proton-bisync.timer

Conclusion

With this setup, I was able to use Proton Drive on Linux in two ways:

  • Direct mount (~/ProtonDrive) → instant access to files in the cloud.
  • Dropbox-style sync (~/ProtonDropbox) → a local folder that stays automatically updated.

Until the official Proton client arrives for Linux, this rclone solution works great for integrating Proton Drive into the system.