TL:DR: Mega launched a new feature that allows you to export files directly from Google Drive to Mega. No need to download and re-upload your files anymore.
All E2EE cloud services should steal this feature. It’s another fantastic way to make it easier for people to degoogle. MEGA says they will support more cloud services soon, which is excellent news.
This is a the 2nd cool feature MEGA launches that I wish other cloud providers would copy.
The first one was was File Request, previously called MEGADrop.
It allows users to create a public upload link so that people who don’t have a MEGA account can drop files into them.
MEGA launched this feature in more than half a decade ago, and I have yet to see a single cloud service follow suite regardless of if they are E2EE or not.
Proton, Filen, Tresorit, what are you waiting for?
One thing that isn’t clear to me is if the data is encrypted locally or on their servers. The help center states:
To keep this as secure as possible, the transfer runs on dedicated servers used only for this process, and all keys are discarded once the import is complete. Your files become zero-knowledge encrypted once they arrive in your MEGA account.
Does this mean they encrypt the data on their servers with your keys or does your browser re-encrypt the data received by their server with your key? The wording is not very clear to me.
I agree. I will have to ask them, Still I think this is promising, and I wish Proton Drive and other cloud services woulf copy MEGA with regard to some of these innovative features.
Seems like just have to trust them that it gets encrypted without them keeping a copy of the key, but to be fair that’s not much different than when you import your Gmail emails into Protonmail. For some users it might be worth not having the hassle of re-uploading everything, e.g. if you have lots of large but non-sensitive files like a big movie or music collection.
Actually, this feature exists in Dropbox too. Dropbox also allows to generate specific “upload” email adress, so everything sent there will be stored in your Dropbox account.
But as I see, this ruins E2EE concept, because server will see your files unencrypted on upload.
There is a way to integrate asymmetric cryptography for that, but it is slow.
So it is like, compromise.
But if you feel, that this feature is critical for you, do not forget to leave feature request on dedicated resources (ex: Proton, Filen, Koofr (Reddit))
Dont mind me, just a dreamer, but I wonder if its possible to create a universal way for any drive service to export files directly to another drive service? It avoids proprietary methods and gives customers the most agency. Sort of like email. That way, drive services like
dont have to make their own implementation. In my opinion, this would be more ideal than them developing their own import feature.
I did not know that. Thank you for letting me know. Although I still have an account, I stopped using Dropbox years ago.
This is why I stopped paying for Dropbox. I had an eBook that I bought and tried sharing with a family member, and Dropbox wouldn’t let me.
I always find it weird that services like Swiss Transfer (by Infomaniak) and Transfer It (by MEGA) were not E2EE when, as alleged privacy companies, they should know better. Well, apparently it’s because non-E2EE files download faster. To me, this is not a good argument from companies that claim to value privacy.
Yes. This is the only reason why I made this post, because I want to see these features in Filen and Proton Drive. Filen is a small company and already has cool features that Proton Drive is missing. I don’t know what they are waiting for.
The first two are proprietary, with MultCloud being Chinese, and RiceDrive being American. I believe RClone is opensource, but it’s CLI based which doesn’t work for me.
I have lifetime subcription for MultCloud that I paid for years ago. From a UX point of view it’s not great. I also wouldn’t use it to transfer personal files unless they are already encrypted, because MultCloud is not E2EE, and it being from China does not make it trustworthy.
I have only used it to transfer non-personal files that have no links to my personal identity, like Hollywood movies or TV shows.
I believe it was someone on PG who told me about RCloneView, which is a GUI version of RClone. I use frequently, but my biggest issue with it is that unlike MultCloud, it requires my computer and internet connection to perform tranfers, which is annoying. I wish they had a web verison. I also don’t think RClone can handle large transfers like 100 GB or even 50GB. I always transfer 4 to 5 GB files individually.
All this is to say, I’m right up there with you dreaming because I want something better too.
Maybe. Idk since ive never used them before. What im envisioning is something like sending an email. Rather than Alice writing a document offline and manually delivering it to Bob in person, she can just send an email. In the same vein, rather than Alice manually downloading a file from a Google drive and manually uploading it to a Mega drive, there would ideally just be a shared way for Google drive and Mega drive to talk to each other (which seems to be what OP posted). And even more ideally is that this way “talking to each other” is shared across all drive services rather than locked behind only Google and Mega. Does that make sense?
That would be amazing, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon.
For the record, I am OP.
Although it’s not what you are looking for, what you describe also reminded me of another service I used to play with a while back called OffCloud.
Offcloud is a cloud-based download manager that allows you to download files from the internet directly into your cloud account, which gives you a layer of privacy.
I used it to transfer files from my Dropbox account to my Google Drive account, but it was a long process for two reasons. First because I had to transfer my files one by one. And secondly, because for most mainstream cloud services like Dropbox and Google Drive, Offcloud required a *direct* download link. Meaning a link that, when you visit it, immediately downloads the file.
Most mainstream cloud services don’t work like that. When you click on a download link, it just opens the page where you can see the file, and you have to manually click download yourself. So I had to find a way to generate direct download links from Dropbox, and although I did, it was a pain in the ass.
That being said, I like the concept of downloading files from the internet directly to your cloud account to save time and computer storage space, but also to protect your privacy.
