Uploading to Proton: no need for extra encryption?

Help and Support
1

What is the problem you are having with rclone?

Just an understand problem. I understand that by uploading from rclone to Proton Drive, rclone is using the E2E encryption provided by Proton, so, files are encrypted the same as if they were uploaded using Proton desktop app. Is that accurate?

So, no need to use Crypt in between if I'm happy with Proton's encryption security.

I'm new to this, I hope I'm not wasting anybody's time.

Run the command 'rclone version' and share the full output of the command.

rclone v1.75.1

  • os/version: darwin 27.0 (64 bit)
  • os/kernel: 27.0.0 (arm64)
  • os/type: darwin
  • os/arch: arm64 (ARMv8 compatible)
  • go/version: go1.26.8
  • go/linking: dynamic
  • go/tags: cmount

Which cloud storage system are you using? (eg Google Drive)

Proton Drive

The command you were trying to run (eg rclone copy /tmp remote:tmp)

rclone sync

Please run 'rclone config redacted' and share the full output. If you get command not found, please make sure to update rclone.

Paste config here

A log from the command that you were trying to run with the -vv flag

Paste  log here
2

The rclone docs page for Proton Drive says the backend supports file transfer "using the same client-side encryption" as Proton Drive, and describes Proton Drive as an end-to-end encrypted vault. So going by the docs, your understanding looks right, and Crypt is not needed to get Proton's own encryption.

Crypt is a separate extra layer. Its docs say a password or pass phrase is used to generate the real encryption key, so it adds encryption with a key you control on top of whatever the remote does. Whether that is worth it depends on what you want to protect against, and the docs can't answer that for you.

One more thing from the same Proton page: the backend is marked Beta, and it says the Proton Drive protocol has changed over time, so some accounts may not be compatible. It is worth testing with a few files and downloading them again before you sync everything.