Proton Drive's desktop and mobile apps are behind where they should be in 2026. The setup complexity and sync speed would have been acceptable a decade or more ago, but they're now well out of step with what people expect from cloud storage.

The underlying problem is that two different products have been bundled into one: computer file sync and phone photo backup. Neither is done well as a result.

The fix would be per-folder sync configuration. Let me nominate any folder on any device and choose its behaviour: upload only (backup), download only (retrieve), or two way (sync). Photo albums can stay as they are in the apps and on the web, but photo handling shouldn't dictate how file sync works.