Why Proton Drive Struggles With Lots of Small Files โ And the Fix That Saved Me Weeks
November 1, 2025โข576 words
Reading time: 3.5 min
Summary:
- Proton Drive upload and download speeds struggle with many small files.
- Zip into 1 file before you upload/download to speed up.
- Consider Ente instead of Proton Drive if you want end-to-end encrypted photo backups.
Proton Drive Struggles With Lots of Small Files
I tried uploading a large collection of files to Proton Drive (over 100,000 files totaling less than 100 GB).
I let it run quietly in the background for weeks.
The upload still wasnโt finished.
New files were still being processed.
Curious (and frustrated), I took to the internet to see what others had experienced with Proton Driveโs upload speeds.
One test (1) involving a large number of files (20,000+ files totaling over 1 GB) ranked Proton Drive the slowest in both upload and download speeds among the services tested.
Another test (2) with a 5 GB folder containing a mix of files (presumably fewer individual items) showed Proton Drive performing moderately in both upload and download speed compared to competitors.
A Reddit comment from u/ProtonMail (3) offered some helpful context:
โThe speed may vary depending on the type of transferred files โ there is, for example, a higher overhead for key generation/decryption for smaller files. As a result, the speed decreases when uploading or downloading numerous smaller files compared to a handful of big ones.
A post shared by user Grunge164 on the Privacy Guides Community forum (4) included a response from Proton Support that explained the issue even more clearly:
โThe download process can be slow, especially if you are downloading a large number of small files (less than 1 MB each). These files need to be downloaded in the background one by one to ensure that each download is successful and the file is properly decrypted. As a result, the download speed cannot exceed a certain threshold since the client only downloads/uploads up to 3โ4 files simultaneously.
โฆIf the 4 files being downloaded are 1 KB each, the download speed would be limited due to the small file size and the sequential nature of the process.โ
Conclusion: my upload was painfully slow because I was uploading too many small files which is limited by the encryption plus verification process.
The Fix
I cancelled the upload, zipped everything into a single archive, and tried again.
It finished in a day.
This also explains why Proton Driveโs photo backup and sync feature is unbearably slow. (Good luck backing up tens/hundreds of thousands of photos. Many small files.) And you can't bypass this problem by zipping first if you use the default photo backup stream.
What I Use Now for Photo Backups
I now use Ente (link) for photo backups (I am a paid subscriber). I've used it for a while and it has proven to be fast and reliable. It's end-to-end encrypted, open source, and its encryption has been independently audited.
Ente has removed the anxiety of having to regularly take a day to arrange photo backups across physical hard drives (and also removed the anxiety of hard drive data loss).
You may consider using my referral code if you would like to try it:
๐ Ente referral code: CI37AC
If you use it, both of us get an extra 10 GB for free on paid plans.
Apply it via: Settings โ General โ Referrals. Thank you for considering!