Proton Drive SDK update: faster, more reliable Drive apps

General
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Proton Drive apps now feature up to 60% faster uploads on iOS and 30% faster uploads and 70% faster downloads on web.

The SDKs don’t cover every workflow yet, especially with some features still in development. To fill that gap, we’re working on command-line interface (CLI) tools that provide Drive functionality not yet available in the SDKs. You will be able to:
  • Run commands directly for common tasks
  • Build on top of them without reverse‑engineering Proton Drive

We’re aiming to make these CLI tools available in the next quarter (April – June 2026).

Over the course of 2026, we’ll migrate all existing Proton Drive features to the SDK, and build all new features on top of it. Our priorities are to:

  • Complete the SDK rollout across all Proton Drive clients, so the desktop, mobile, and web apps use the same codebase.

  • Upgrade Drive’s encryption algorithms to use on‑device hardware acceleration, delivering faster operations while reducing CPU usage.

  • Add the still-missing Drive features to the SDK, starting with Photos uploads and downloads, file sharing, devices, and file revisions.

  • Gradually move toward a single, well‑documented integration path that third‑party apps can rely on.

  • Build a Linux client using the SDK, which speeds up development and keeps it consistent with the other Proton Drive clients.

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I hope they hurry up and keep improving it.

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Baffling there is still no development on Drive for Linux. They promised (what, over a year ago) that this SDK was the path to basically have community develop that app for them. Their promises for Linux development have repeatedly missed deadlines (by years sometimes). They have repeatedly stated their Linux products are in such terrible state because of a shortage of Linux devs. Well, they currently have 55 job postings up…not a single one is for a Linux dev, and only one is for a Drive dev who is not specific to Android, iOS or Windows. No wonder they don’t have Linux devs, they are making literally zero effort to hire them. Let’s just keep in perspective that this is a company that is just pursuing profit through catering to major (purposefully privacy-invasive) platforms.

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Looks like its still planned for 2026.

Under the What’s Next section they have

Build a Linux client using the SDK, which speeds up development and keeps it consistent with the other Proton Drive clients.

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They have been promising this for a while.

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Glad to see PDrive is improving, but still needs a fair bit of work before I use it regularly

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Still waiting on this so I can use obsidian on Android via the cloud rather than locally.

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We’ve been focused on making end-to-end encrypted cloud storage faster, smoother, and more consistent everywhere you use it. To get there, we rebuilt Proton Drive around a stronger technical foundation: a single, shared engine that unifies all our cloud storage apps across platforms and powers all uploading, downloading, encryption, and more.

These behind-the-scenes developments have an enormous impact that you can see and feel today. It means better, more consistent performance and vastly improved speeds. And it enables us to power more Drive integrations with every other Proton app: You’ll start seeing deeper integrations with the rest of the Proton ecosystem and support for more clients — and yes, including Linux.

Our work on the SDK continues. As it continues to power new features, Proton Drive will become harmonized across platforms, more deeply integrated across the Proton ecosystem, and easier for the community to build on — all while keeping your files end-to-end encrypted. We’re also now actively building one of the community’s most-requested features: the Proton Drive client for Linux, built from the ground up to leverage the SDK.

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At least in this they made a video and put linux users at the center of the video with a pause not at the side/end on small text… It’s something, hope this means weeks not years lol. But got me a bit excited :smiley:

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I’m not sure whether to be excited or annoyed that they mentioned Linux support in this article. They’ve been name dropping Linux so much these the last couple of Proton Drive articles—maybe ever since 2024, from my understanding—that I just ignore it now. After all this time, all that they’ve done is name drop Linux again, saying that they are only

now actively building

the Linux client… Emphasis on the “now” aspect. The last time they announced to be actively working on a client, it took months to even more than year to crank out.[1]

They have successfully blue-balled me, if not the Linux community.

Surely this is sarcastic? They relegated the mention of Linux support to 27 out of 33 seconds, which is no different than the name-dropping they’ve been doing the last two years, in my opinion.

But you are onto something, I’ll agree. While Linux is unfortunately not the main focus of the video, the video itself is an implication of something: there had to have been staff of some sort hired to help produce the video. If they are at this point, maybe the end really is nigh after all.

me too ;D

  1. They published a road map for Drive in October 2022 revealing that they were “currently working” on a Windows and macOS client. It took nine months for the Windows client to release and thirteen months for the macOS client to release. ↩︎

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