FAQ

Is it safe to use on important files?

It’s an early prototype. Sync is bidirectional and deletions propagate — a remote delete removes the local file permanently. Use disposable folders and keep backups until you trust it, always dry-run first, and leave the delete-approval guard on. Read Deletions before your first real run.

Does it talk to Proton Drive directly?

Mostly not. Every remote file operation (list, upload, download, delete) shells out to Proton’s own proton-drive CLI. Change detection does read Proton’s volume-event stream directly over HTTPS, but authenticated by reusing the CLI’s logged-in session (from your keyring) rather than any credentials of its own. Either way, proton-drive must be installed, on PATH, and authenticated.

What happens on the very first sync?

The first pass is a non-destructive merge: local-only files upload, remote-only files download, matching files are linked, and files that differ are kept as both (a .proton-cloud conflict sidecar). Nothing is deleted on the first pass.

What does a remote delete do to my local files?

It deletes them permanently from disk — a direct filesystem removal, not a move to your OS trash — and folder deletions are recursive. A local delete, by contrast, moves the Proton Drive copy to Proton’s Trash, where it’s recoverable. See Deletions.

Why was my deletion “withheld”?

The delete-approval guard is on by default and holds destructive deletions until you approve them. Use proton-sync pending / approve, the app’s Deletions screen, or relax the guard per folder.

Can I sync only part of a folder?

Yes — use include/exclude globs. See Selective sync. Excluded paths are taken out of sync entirely and are never treated as “deleted”.

Does it detect renames and moves?

Yes for files in either direction, and for directories renamed/moved on the remote side. A directory renamed locally is currently handled as a delete-and-recreate, not a move.

Are symlinks synced?

No. Symlinks under the local root are skipped in both directions, and the daemon refuses to write through a symlinked directory that would escape the sync root.

Can I run more than one daemon?

No — one daemon per user. Every daemon shells the same proton-drive CLI, whose shared SQLite cache isn’t concurrency-safe, so a user-global lock enforces a single instance.

Does closing the desktop app stop syncing?

No. Closing the window hides it to the tray; the app process and the daemon keep running. Syncing is the daemon’s job, independent of the window. See Tray.

Why isn’t there a transfer percentage?

The daemon reports in-flight progress as [i/N] file counts on stderr only — it never crosses the control socket — so the app shows file counts and an indeterminate bar rather than a fabricated percentage.

Does it work on Windows or macOS?

The control plane uses Unix domain sockets, so it’s Unix-only, and Linux is the only supported target — keyring session reuse (secret-tool/libsecret), the desktop app, and the native packaging are all Linux-specific. Windows is out of scope.

Where does it keep its state?

In <local-root>/.sync/ (the SQLite index and its sidecars, plus the per-root lockfile), which the engine always ignores. The control socket is in $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR. See the architecture.