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Sync file deletion between local and cloud storage

In the proton drive app, you choose folders to sync to the cloud. But when you delete a file from Proton Drive, its local copy is not deleted from your computer. However, when delete a local file, its cloud copy is automatically deleted.

This can cause problems, for example if you rename or otherwise edit a local file that is in a synced folder but whose cloud copy you have deleted, it's going to create a new cloud copy of it.

My suggestion: Adding two new toggles in the settings. One that would make it so that when you delete a file from your cloud, its local copy would be deleted too. And another one that would allow the user to choose whether the cloud copy of a file should be removed when the local version of this file is deleted.

This feature would improve the user experience by avoiding confusion and duplication of files, as well as saving storage space and bandwidth. It would also enhance the security and privacy of the users by ensuring that their files are deleted from both locations when they want to. Users would have the option to enable or disable this feature according to their preferences and needs.

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  • John commented  ·   ·  Report

    Hey, it's great to be able to save pictures on proton Drive. But more often than not, I'll take a picture of a ticket, or of a password or anything.

    These are not meant to stay on my gallery forever, they are, however, saved into Proton Drive. I think it'd therefore be nice to have the option to automatically delete the pictures from Proton Drive when they are deleted from the phone (hence the « sync, not save » title). Otherwise, I have to manually delete pictures both from my phone's storage and Proton Drive.

  • Maikerr commented  ·   ·  Report

    Totalmente esto es fundamental para mi ya que si borro una foto del movil no se borra del backup y al revés tampoco, se necesita con urgencia sincronización bidireccional.

  • FredP commented  ·   ·  Report

    Be able to choose in Drive to mirror your photos and files. If I delete a file or photo on my phone, it should also be deleted from Drive the next time it syncs.

  • Artur commented  ·   ·  Report

    Is it possible for the ProtonDrive app not to synchronise folders and files that are already in the cloud? I would like to use it on my work laptop only as a tool for archiving documents to the cloud. Not for synchronising everything I have on ProtonDrive to my work laptop.

  • John Moore commented  ·   ·  Report

    A simple solution would be an archive subfolder in the Proton Drive. This folder would not sync. Moving a photo to archive would then delete the photo on the phone. The photo would still be available for the album feature in Proton drive.

  • Fabien commented  ·   ·  Report

    I agree for 2 reasons:
    - I have more storage on Proton Drive than on my Mac
    - I'm using multiple devices and I don't want to sync everything, everywhere.

  • James Krieger commented  ·   ·  Report

    Yes this is soooo important. I'm having a problem right now where I synced my Onedrive Files to Proton. My Onedrive subscription ends soon and I can't download all my Onedrive Files to preserve them as I don't have as much HD space as cloud space. One my Onedrive gets unlinked, I'll lose any non-downloaded cloud files, and Proton will automatically assume those files are gone and delete them from the cloud. I need to be able to tell Proton not to delete from the cloud when the local files are gone, otherwise I'll lose my files on Proton too. I'm pretty surprised they don't have this option.

  • L commented  ·   ·  Report

    I agree this would be great - with the option to opt in/out or toggle request each time. as some people have said; it's great to be able to sync the photos on iphoto & drive, but you might want to delete them off the phone but not the drive sometimes to free up phone storage.

  • Jens Oliver Meiert commented  ·   ·  Report

    It would be super-helpful to be able to mark files and folders so that they cannot be synced to other devices (and are therefore only present on the source system as well as at Proton).

    This could be useful for sensitive data that exist on the source machine, need to be backed up, but *also* need to be prevented from inadvertently landing on other (perhaps less trusted) machines.

    Implementation is left open here, but could happen in various interesting ways. The most “natural” way I’d see is to navigate to Proton Drive, select a file or folder, then mark it as “sync to Proton Drive only” or some such.

  • Jack commented  ·   ·  Report

    I was surprised to find this element missing. I got Proton Drive primarily for cloud storage of personal records and photos, with shared file access as a secondary role. It's redundant to have these files sync to the desktop folder, consuming a lot of resources client side. There are some files, such as recovery keys, etc. that a person does not want synced to devices. Presently my only option is to use the drive exclusively online without installing the desktop or mobile apps and continuing to use Sync for file sharing with family (all of whom are also Proton subscribers). Being able to create a secure vault within Proton servers would solve the problem.

  • Stefan D commented  ·   ·  Report

    As others have already mentioned, please implement a functionality that allows to store files in a "restricted" area of Proton Drive (e.g., for long-term backup of files that don't need to be synced locally). Sync.com's Vault feature would be very much desirable to see in Proton Drive. Thanks!

  • Berry commented  ·   ·  Report

    Critical for those of us who store photos in the cloud so they do not have to be stored on devices. Currently, I can upload from my phone to the cloud and then delete it from my phone, but the files are synced to my laptop, which defeats the purpose. I want cloud-only storage and to choose which files to sync, such as the Vault system with Sync.com where photos are put into the "Vault" and not synced with any device or laptop.

  • F commented  ·   ·  Report

    I would also greatly appreciate a system by which we can manage synchronizing deleted photos!

  • David commented  ·   ·  Report

    Dropbox has a feature they refer to as "Selective Sync". It allows me to select folders that have been synced to the cloud by other computers using my Dropbox account that I do NOT want to have accessible on this computer. I am trying to switch from Dropbox to Proton Drive, but the lack of this feature is giving me heartburn. On one of my machines, I have thousands of files that I want to be backed up offsite, but I don't want them to show up on all my other computers that use PD. I realize they are just placeholders and take up virtually no space on my physical drive, but setting up PD on a new computer takes forever as it tries to catalog all those available files that I'm never going to want on this machine.

    There are several other request tickets here that talk about selective sync. Many of them are talking about the other direction -- selecting what on my local machine to push up to the cloud. That's a great ask, too, but totally different from this request. This is all about choosing what exists in the cloud that I want to ignore on this machine.

    There are also other tickets that are either directly related or could potentially be (partially) solved by implementing it. This new ticket is intended to clarify the underlying request and to link all these others. (To other users-if you find other tickets that are related that I missed, please add via comment). Here are some that I found:

    https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/932839-proton-drive/suggestions/49185443-select-folder-not-to-sync-to-machine

    https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/932839-proton-drive/suggestions/49185458-select-folders-not-to-sync-to-machine

    https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/932839-proton-drive/suggestions/47028859-server-only-storage-for-proton-drive

    https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/932839-proton-drive/suggestions/48481115-option-to-disable-sync-for-subfolder

    https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/932839-proton-drive/suggestions/48791267-the-syncing-confuses-me-i-d-like-it-to-work-like

    https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/932839-proton-drive/suggestions/47464064-segmentation-multiple-drives-per-account

    https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/932839-proton-drive/suggestions/46936513-optional-one-way-or-two-way-synchronization-direct

  • Pamela commented  ·   ·  Report

    I cannot agree more. Don't know why it's not upvoted more. It's a must have feature.

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