I’ve been struggling for weeks with rclone + Proton Drive and wanted to ask if others are facing the same.
Back in September 2024, rclone suddenly stopped working with Proton Drive. I raised a support ticket with Proton (support AT protondrive.zendesk DOT com) and what followed was a long back-and-forth that never gave me a clear answer. Instead, the replies felt like Proton was dodging the issue.
From what I can tell, they quietly blocked rclone API access without publicly admitting it. I found this concerning because Proton has long marketed themselves to help Rclone users. Yet I feel like they are making it very ddificult to use one of the most widely used open-source sync tools, which works reliably with other services such as Dropbox, Gdrive, S3 etc.
Timeline from my support emails (I can share screenshots if helpful):
Sep 23, 2024 – First reported the issue to Proton support.
Sep 26 – Oct 4, 2024 – Multiple exchanges with support, no solution given.
Oct 14 – Oct 22, 2024 – Continued pressing them, Proton still avoided saying rclone was blocked.
Oct 25 – Oct 29, 2024 – More tickets, and even after escalating, I got vague answers. At one point I had to contact contact@proton.me directly (Oct 29).
Nov 1 – Nov 4, 2024 – Final replies confirmed nothing technical was wrong on my end, but they still refused to state outright that rclone was being blocked.
So my question is:
Has anyone else noticed Proton intentionally blocking rclone? If so, did they ever officially acknowledge it, or is this being kept quiet?
I think the community deserves clarity.
Here is an error I suddently started receive from their own Web GUI when I tried to upload a large amount of data to my ProtonDrive via Rclone. Error says “ TOO MANY API REQUESTS“
There is nobody working on Proton remote at the moment. Existing solution was reverse engineering attempt by some brave person. But unfortunately he went quiet for long. So this implementation experience slow software rot.
IMO unless Proton opens their API officially for 3rd party tools I would not hold my breath that things change with regards to rclone supporting it:)
The best what we could do is to update documentation and state clearly that it is not under active maintenance and until things change its use is not recommended.
I understand. Thanks for the clarification @kapitainsky . I wasnt aware of it.
At the moment, lots of proton mods in reddit community request Linux users to simply use Rclone. But i think it wastes time. If we could mention on the Rclone website its not as stable as people might expect, it might help save time of others trying it for the first time.
Docs say that it is beta. Probably different people have different understanding what it means:) I think it is time to make it more explicit and admit that Proton drive support it no more. @ncw@asdffdsa@Animosity022 - what do you guys think?
100%, I’ve ran into this and emailed them in the past. In fact, I came here today looking to see if anything has been changed, as I’ve ran into the same error. I know when I emailed them last time, they had to over ride something on the account, likely to allow an increase in the API usage, I would imagine/.. Really sucks when imo, of course, this is on Proton and not anyone working rclone…
Perhaps this works for small number of files, or small amount of data.
But I confirm even today using this to manage a large folder (several thousands of files) will first throttle the rclone process. Then it starts to timeout. And then if you go to web GUI, it still gives you an error saying:
“Too Many Recent API Requests”
I am aware of proton’s own reccoemndation of parameters. But the issue is that they still induce a throttling effect on the account.
Also, proton drive official support claims they are working with the Rclone maintainer who handles proton drive support. I am really not sure if that is correct. The reddit comment was posted today from their account.
At least look like they follow and respond to reddit posts. Anybody who is interested in rclone support of proton drive should make sure that such threads do not get silent and forgotten. Users pressure can make difference.
