Nextcloud or WebDAV to Proton Drive: Keep End-to-End Encryption Without Running a Server

Q: My Nextcloud account uses 2FA — which password do I enter?

An app password. In Nextcloud, open Personal settings → Security → Devices & sessions , create an app password and use it instead of your login password. WebDAV clients cannot answer a 2FA prompt, so the normal password will be rejected.

Q: What WebDAV URL should I use?

For Nextcloud, the address shown under Files settings → WebDAV in the Files app, which looks like https://cloud.example.com/remote.php/dav/files/USERNAME/ . The USERNAME part is your Nextcloud user ID, which is not always your display name. ownCloud and other WebDAV servers show their own address in their settings or documentation.

Move files from Nextcloud, ownCloud or any WebDAV server to Proton Drive with desktop apps, rclone, or a server-side copy. Covers 2FA and what won't move.

Introduction

Proton Drive encrypts every file and file name on your device before upload, and Proton itself cannot read them. That is the same promise people get from running their own Nextcloud — minus the server: no updates to apply, no disk to watch, no certificate to renew. The move usually comes when a self-hosted box, a shared hosting plan or an old ownCloud instance is about to be retired, and the owner wants to keep the privacy without keeping the maintenance.

The difficulty is that the two ends don't share a protocol. Your server speaks WebDAV; Proton Drive has no WebDAV endpoint and no public API, so the sync tools that work between WebDAV services cannot write to it. Three tools can, and which one fits depends on your setup: whether the server is reachable from the internet, whether Proton's two-factor authentication can be off for a day, and whether you are on Linux.

Two Lists to Check Before You Start
Which Situation Are You In?
After the Move: What Changes Day to Day
Frequently Asked Questions

Two Lists to Check Before You Start

1. What leaves the server, and what doesn't

A Nextcloud or ownCloud server holds more than files, but every route to Proton Drive reads the server over WebDAV — and WebDAV only sees the file tree.

On your server	Copied?	What to do
Files and folders	✔ Yes	The folder structure is recreated in Proton Drive
Files under Nextcloud server-side encryption	✔ Yes	The server decrypts them when they are read over WebDAV
Nextcloud end-to-end encrypted folders	✘ Only ciphertext with scrambled names	Sync them with the Nextcloud desktop client, which holds your keys, and upload the decrypted files
Calendars (CalDAV) and contacts (CardDAV)	✘ No	Export .ics and .vcf files; import them into Proton Calendar and Proton Contacts
Share links, user and federated shares	✘ No	Note the ones still in use and recreate them in Proton Drive
File versions and the trash bin	✘ No	Restore anything you still need into the normal file tree first
Comments, tags, favourites	✘ No	Nothing to carry them into

2. How much space you need on Proton

Nextcloud shows your usage at the bottom of the Files navigation. Uploads stop when the Proton quota is full, so choose the plan first:

Proton plan	Storage	Monthly billing
Proton Free	5 GB	$0
Drive Plus	200 GB	$4.99
Proton Unlimited	500 GB	$12.99
Proton Duo	2 TB, 2 users	$19.99
Proton Family	3 TB, up to 6 users	$29.99

From proton.me/drive/pricing, checked October 2026; annual billing costs less. Proton states no file size limit.

Which Situation Are You In?

Proton Drive only accepts files that were encrypted on the client, so only tools that carry Proton's encryption can write to it: CloudsLinker, Proton's own apps and rclone. Find your setup below — each section starts with who it is for.

Your Server Is Reachable from the Internet

This fits you if your Nextcloud, ownCloud or WebDAV server has a public HTTPS address, and you can turn Proton's two-factor authentication off until the migration is done.

CloudsLinker reads the server over WebDAV and writes into Proton Drive with Proton's encryption, on its own servers. Your computer needs no free disk space and can be switched off while it runs.

Get the WebDAV address first. In Nextcloud's Files app, open Files settings; the address ends in /remote.php/dav/files/USERNAME/. That last part is your Nextcloud user ID, which can differ from your display name or login email, so copy it rather than type it (/remote.php/webdav/ in older guides is a legacy alias). If the account has 2FA, create an app password under Personal settings → Security → Devices & sessions — the normal password will be rejected. ownCloud and NAS WebDAV servers show their own address in their settings (Nextcloud WebDAV docs).

Step 1: Connect Nextcloud, ownCloud or WebDAV

Click Add Cloud and choose Nextcloud, ownCloud or the generic WebDav tile. Paste the WebDAV address, enter your username, and use the app password if you created one.

CloudsLinker Connect Nextcloud dialog with fields for the WebDAV URL, username and password, and an authorize button

Step 2: Connect Proton Drive

Turn off two-factor authentication in your Proton account settings — CloudsLinker signs in again from its servers during long transfers and has no way to enter a code. Then click Add Cloud, choose Proton Drive and enter your Proton email and password. The password is required because Proton uses it to unlock the keys that encrypt your files. If authorization does not finish in the browser, the dialog links a desktop authentication tool for macOS and Windows.

CloudsLinker Connect Your Cloud Drive dialog for Proton Drive: a yellow notice to turn off Proton two-factor authentication before adding, macOS (.dmg) and Windows (.msi) buttons for the desktop authentication tool and the support email, followed by email and password fields with no verification-code field

Step 3: Configure the Transfer

On Create transfer task, select the server's folders as the source and a Proton Drive folder such as Nextcloud import as the target; the target side picks folders only and can create a new one. Keep Copy so the server keeps its files until you have checked Proton — Move deletes each file from the server after copying. A second run only re-sends same-name files whose size differs or whose date is newer. Filters take file extensions or a size range in MB, and Skip Empty Folder leaves out empty directories.

CloudsLinker Create transfer task page with a Nextcloud connection as the source — Documents, Photos and Projects checked, Talk and Templates unchecked — and a Nextcloud import folder selected in a Proton Drive account as the target; Copy and Skip Empty Folder are checked

Step 4: Start and Monitor the Transfer

Click Create transfer and follow it in Task monitor, which has All, Running, Scheduled and Failed tabs and a Retry button for finished tasks.

CloudsLinker Task monitor with All, Running, Scheduled and Failed tabs, one running task with a Cancel button and finished tasks with Retry buttons (example tasks from other clouds)

Your Server Is Only on Your Home Network

This fits you if the server is reachable only on your LAN, through Tailscale or a VPN — or if you want to keep Proton's two-factor authentication switched on — and you use Windows or macOS.

Nothing on the internet can reach the server, so the copy has to run on a computer at home, with a local copy in the middle. You need free disk space for what you move.

Diagram of the home-network route: inside a dashed box labelled Your home network, a Nextcloud server sends files over the LAN through the Nextcloud desktop client to your Windows or macOS computer, which needs free disk space; the Proton Drive app then encrypts the files on that computer and uploads them over the internet to Proton Drive, which stores only encrypted data

Install the Nextcloud desktop client and connect your account. Turn off virtual files for the folders you plan to move, so you get real copies rather than placeholders. For ownCloud or another server, use its client or mount the WebDAV address in Finder or File Explorer.
Install the Proton Drive app for Windows or macOS and sign in; it asks for your 2FA code once, like any login.
Copy the synced folders into the Proton Drive folder. The app encrypts and uploads them in the background and retries failed uploads.

You're on Linux or Prefer a Terminal

This fits you if you run Linux — Proton announced a Linux desktop client in mid-2026 but has not released it — or you would rather script the copy, possibly from a machine inside your home network.

rclone has a WebDAV backend and, since v1.64, a Proton Drive backend that encrypts files the way Proton's apps do. It is documented as beta and built without an official API, so start with one small folder. Run rclone config to add a webdav remote (vendor nextcloud, owncloud or other) and a protondrive remote; rclone asks for the 2FA code if the Proton account has one.

rclone copy nextcloud:Documents proton:Nextcloud-import/Documents --progress
rclone check nextcloud:Documents proton:Nextcloud-import/Documents

Linux terminal running rclone copy nextcloud:Documents proton:Nextcloud-import/Documents --progress, with example progress output: 312.418 MiB of 1.204 GiB transferred at 9.812 MiB/s, 41 of 186 files done, and four files listed under Transferring with their percentage and speed

Run it once per top-level folder. Repeating the command skips files that already arrived, so an interrupted copy picks up where it stopped.

After the Move: What Changes Day to Day

You used to…	With Proton Drive
Mount the server as a network drive over WebDAV	No WebDAV; on Windows and macOS the Proton Drive app syncs a local folder instead, and scripts that wrote to WebDAV need another target
Auto-upload phone photos with the Nextcloud app	Turn on photo backup in the Proton Drive mobile app and switch the Nextcloud upload off
Send Nextcloud share links	Create new share links in Proton Drive; the old links stop working when the server goes
Keep calendars and contacts on the same server	Proton Calendar and Proton Contacts, after importing the .ics and .vcf exports
Patch, back up and renew the server	Nothing to maintain — but keep the server, or a snapshot of its data directory, until you have opened files from every folder in Proton

Finally, tidy up the access you opened for the migration: revoke the Nextcloud app password, remove the Proton connection from CloudsLinker, and turn Proton's two-factor authentication back on.

Frequently Asked Questions

No. Proton Drive has no WebDAV endpoint and no public API, because every file has to be encrypted by the client before upload. Tools that can write to it carry Proton's encryption logic themselves: Proton's own apps, rclone's Proton Drive backend (beta) and CloudsLinker. Mounting Proton Drive as a WebDAV drive is not possible without an unofficial bridge.

CloudsLinker signs in to Proton from its servers again during long transfers, and there is nobody there to type a code. Turn 2FA off before adding Proton Drive and keep it off while the connection exists; you can turn it back on after the migration and after removing the connection. Your password is needed because Proton uses it to unlock the keys that encrypt your files.

An app password. In Nextcloud, open Personal settings → Security → Devices & sessions, create an app password and use it instead of your login password. WebDAV clients cannot answer a 2FA prompt, so the normal password will be rejected.

For Nextcloud, the address shown under Files settings → WebDAV in the Files app, which looks like https://cloud.example.com/remote.php/dav/files/USERNAME/. The USERNAME part is your Nextcloud user ID, which is not always your display name. ownCloud and other WebDAV servers show their own address in their settings or documentation.

Not in readable form. Folders encrypted with Nextcloud's end-to-end encryption app are stored on the server already encrypted, with scrambled names, and only the Nextcloud clients that hold your keys can decrypt them. Sync those folders with the Nextcloud desktop client first and upload the decrypted files to Proton Drive. Server-side encryption is different: it is transparent over WebDAV and those files transfer normally.

For a while, yes. Save the CloudsLinker transfer as a weekly or monthly scheduled task (paid plans) and each run copies only new or changed files. Copy mode never deletes anything in Proton Drive, so files you remove from the server during that period stay in Proton until you delete them there too.

Uploads stop once the quota is full. Proton Free includes 5 GB, Drive Plus 200 GB, Proton Unlimited 500 GB, Duo 2 TB and Family 3 TB, so check the server's total usage first and pick the plan before starting. Folders that are only on the server as archives can be filtered out or moved in a later pass.

Yes to both. Select individual folders as the source, and use filters to include or exclude file extensions or set a size range in MB. The folder hierarchy under the selected source is recreated inside the Proton Drive target folder.

Conclusion

If your server is only reachable at home or behind a VPN, use the desktop route: sync it down with the Nextcloud client and drop the files into the Proton Drive app on Windows or macOS. rclone handles the same job from a terminal, including on Linux, but its Proton Drive backend is still marked beta, so test a small folder first. For a server that is reachable from the internet, CloudsLinker copies straight from the WebDAV URL into Proton Drive without a local copy — remember to turn off Proton's two-factor authentication before connecting, and to export calendars and contacts separately.

Related: NAS to Proton Drive, iCloud Photos to Nextcloud, and the connection notes for Nextcloud, ownCloud and Proton Drive.

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