GNOME Online Accounts
GNOME is the most popular desktop on Linux, being used by the most popular distributions, including Ubuntu. One of my favorite features that it has is GNOME Online Accounts (GOA), a background service that allows you to seamlessly access your data from several providers using the system apps like Calendar and Files.
Google, Microsoft, and NextCloud are fully supported. It would be amazing to have this same level of support for Proton. I'd love to be able to seamlessly use Proton Mail in Geary without having to setup the bridge, upload files to Proton Drive using GNOME Files and create events in GNOME Calendar.
I don't mind the hurdles for the time being, but honestly this is the only thing that is stopping me from going and buying multiple years of Proton Unlimited.
With that out of the way, here's some technical information that I've gathered on my own:
- GOAs email integration supplies applications with the IMAP and SMTP configuration they need to use, so a bridge would still be necessary, though for the code to be merged into GOA, it would probably have to be in C, which would mean a reimplementation just for this. Alternatively, it might be possible to make it so that GOA providers can require that a given name be registered with DBus, and then the existing Go implementation could just register itself with DBus once its connected, and have the Go implementation give GOA the SMTP/IMAP login info through DBus.
- Calendar integration would require CalDAV support
- Contacts integration would require CardDAV support
- Files integration would require a custom GVFS mount
According to one of the GNOME developers, they are "fairly sure" that this support won't be added by them anytime soon, due to the technical complexity. However, if Proton itself contributed the code, I'm sure they would be willing to merge it, assuming Proton continued to maintain their piece of the code.
Thanks for your consideration.
Julia Johannesen
shared this idea
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Matthew Bulfinch
commented
This is a huge issue for me. I switched to Nextcloud (Murena technically) but would love to stay in the Proton ecosystem. This is the one thing that stops me.
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Hunter Bison commented
I am an Unlimited user and while I enjoy the design & UX of Proton apps, for my desktop use I would like to see tighter integration of Proton Drive, Mail & Calendar etc. into GNOME.
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Kuzey Çalışkan commented
I agree with Julia on this part, as I like to move my services away from the browser and make them more ingrained with my desktop environment. I've been using the Nautilus (GNOME Files) integration for my google drive, as I find google's website to be overly clunky and a bit difficult to use, and I would prefer the same integration with proton services. Currently, the lack of this integration is the only thing keeping me from fully buying into the proton ecosystem.
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Hans-Henrik Jakobsen
commented
I have joined Proton universe and even signed a paid plan for my entire family, solely to move our data away from US Tech giants to European provider with good reputation. Using Ubuntu (or any other distro for that matter) it would be extremely helpful to have full desktop integration just as beforementioned Tech competitors.
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Dave
commented
As I'm also transitioning more and more to Linux and as a full-subscriber to Proton, this is indeed important, nay, critical to me. I love to use Proton, but it shd integrate, not be the odd person out.
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Sohrob Tahmasebi
commented
In addition to macOS I also regularly use various Linux distributions and would love to see Proton listed as an online account option for full integration into the GNOME desktop environment.
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Alan Cristhian commented
I also want integration with gnome passwords and keys apps.
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Val Packett commented
rclone now supports Proton Drive btw. There is a GUI app called Celeste that uses it. However the way it currently handles authentication is by always storing your Proton password, which is not good.
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[Deleted User]
commented
This would be perfect.
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[Deleted User]
commented
This would make switching from Windows to Linux much easier for me. Currently in the process of doing this with the help of proton.
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Tristán Guerra GómΣz
commented
100% Linux shop (no android). This is our #1 ask (would put all ten votes here if I could)
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SJ
commented
Linux GNOME Desktop has an Online Account integration. So if you add Google Account it integrates into the GNOME Calendar, Into your Mail Application (i.e. Evolution ) and also maps/mounts the Google Drive into the File Manager. Proton now has the same suite of products so Proton Account should be one of the options.