Proton Drive GUI for Linux

Proton Drive GUI is a privacy-focused desktop interface built around Proton's official proton-drive command-line client.

The goal is simple: provide a practical graphical interface for everyday Proton Drive file management without reimplementing Proton's protocols, authentication, or encryption.

Unofficial third-party project. Not affiliated with Proton AG.

The application delegates authentication and Proton Drive operations to the official CLI, while the GUI focuses on navigation, file management, and desktop usability.

Features

Authentication

Authentication is handled by the official Proton Drive CLI.

The GUI does not implement its own Proton authentication system or handle Proton credentials directly. Login is performed through:

proton-drive auth login

The official CLI opens the browser for authentication and stores the resulting session using the operating system's secret store.

Privacy & Security

The application is intentionally designed as a thin GUI layer around the official Proton Drive CLI.

It does not:

• reimplement the Proton Drive protocol
• implement its own encryption
• handle Proton passwords directly
• replace Proton's authentication system
• send user files to a third-party service

The GUI communicates with the local proton-drive binary and displays the results in a desktop interface.

This approach keeps security-critical Proton Drive functionality inside the official Proton software rather than attempting to reproduce it in the GUI.

Architecture

┌──────────────────────────────┐
│       Proton Drive GUI       │
│         PySide6 / Qt         │
└──────────────┬───────────────┘
               │
               ▼
┌──────────────────────────────┐
│       CLI Integration        │
│          gui/cli.py          │
│  JSON normalization + calls  │
└──────────────┬───────────────┘
               │
               ▼
┌──────────────────────────────┐
│   Official Proton Drive CLI  │
│       proton-drive           │
└──────────────┬───────────────┘
               │
               ▼
┌──────────────────────────────┐
│         Proton Drive         │
└──────────────────────────────┘

The GUI and CLI integration layers are deliberately separated.

gui/main_window.py handles the desktop interface, while gui/cli.py handles interaction with the official command-line client and normalizes variations in its JSON output.

JSON Compatibility

The Proton Drive CLI supports JSON output, but its output schema is not currently exposed as a single stable documented contract.

The GUI therefore normalizes common field-name variations such as:

• name / Name
• size / Size
• other equivalent fields returned by different CLI versions

This keeps the GUI more tolerant of changes in the CLI output.

Installation

One-shot installer

The recommended installation method is:

git clone https://github.com/al3xg0r/protondrive-gui.git
cd protondrive-gui
./install.sh

The installer:

• installs required system packages
• downloads and verifies the official Proton Drive CLI
• creates the Python environment
• installs the GUI
• creates a desktop launcher

After installation, authenticate once:

proton-drive auth login

Then launch Proton Drive GUI from the application menu.

AppImage

An AppImage can be built with:

./build-appimage.sh

The resulting application is packaged as a portable AppImage.

The official proton-drive CLI is still required separately and must be available on PATH.

Flatpak and Snap packages are intentionally not provided.

Technology Stack

• Python 3.10+
• PySide6
• Qt
• Official Proton Drive CLI
• Linux
• PyInstaller
• AppImage
• Open Source

Known Limitations

Linux only

The project is currently built and tested on Linux.

PySide6 itself is cross-platform, but Windows and macOS are not currently tested or supported.

No account information or storage quota

The official CLI currently does not expose commands for retrieving:

• account name
• account email
• storage quota

The GUI therefore cannot display this information.

No real image/video thumbnails

The Photos view displays filenames, sizes, media types, and icons, but does not download full files just to generate thumbnails.

The CLI does not currently expose a lightweight thumbnail-fetch command.

Upload/download progress

Progress is currently parsed from the CLI's live spinner output because the CLI does not provide a documented JSON progress format.

This makes progress reporting inherently best-effort and potentially sensitive to future CLI changes.

Shared content

Shared by me and Shared with me are available, but some operations are intentionally disabled there until their behavior can be confirmed safely.

For example, rename/delete/restore actions are not exposed in shared views because those operations may have different semantics for content that the current user does not own.

Sharing management

Browsing shared content is supported, but management actions such as invitations, removing shares, and share URLs are not implemented yet.

Why This Project Exists

Proton Drive provides an official command-line client, but a CLI is not always the most convenient way to manage files on a desktop.

Proton Drive GUI fills that gap without trying to become another independent Proton Drive implementation.

The project keeps the architecture deliberately thin:

Proton handles Proton Drive. The CLI handles the protocol and authentication. The GUI handles the desktop experience.

This keeps the application lightweight while avoiding unnecessary duplication of security-critical functionality.

Open Source

The project is developed openly on GitHub and welcomes issues, feedback, and pull requests.

The GUI layer and CLI wrapper are kept separate so that most changes can be made without tightly coupling the entire application.

Links

• GitHub
• Proton Drive
• Official Proton Drive CLI

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Proton Drive GUI Lightweight desktop access to Proton Drive — without the terminal.