Configuration

Most settings are in the app under Preferences. This page documents the configuration file behind them, the settings that exist only there, the environment variables the programs read, and where the client keeps its data.

• Files and directories
• config.json
• Environment variables
• The systemd service

Files and directories

Path	Contents
~/.config/proton-drive-linux/config.json	Settings (this page)
~/.config/proton-drive-linux/machine-id	A random id for this machine. It names this machine's profile in a computer's backup that several computers may share
~/.local/state/proton-drive-linux/cache.db	Metadata database: names, folder tree, sync state, upload queue, photo index
~/.local/state/proton-drive-linux/sdk_cache.db	Encrypted cache of Proton Drive metadata. Safe to delete while the service is stopped
~/.local/state/proton-drive-linux/control.sock	Socket the app, tray, prompt and CLI use to reach the service
~/.cache/proton-drive-linux/content/	File content cache, see below
~/ProtonDrive	The Proton Drive folder (default mountpoint)
System keyring	The session. Never written to disk by the client

The directories honour XDG_CONFIG_HOME, XDG_STATE_HOME and XDG_CACHE_HOME. They must be real directories owned by you with mode 0700; the service refuses to start otherwise.

Inside content/:

Directory	Contents	Safe to delete?
top level, blocks/, thumbs/	Cached file content and thumbnails	Yes — use pdfs cache clear
scratch/	Files open for writing right now	No
staging/	Closed files waiting to upload	No — may be the only copy
recovery/	Writes rescued after a crash, waiting to be queued	No — may be the only copy

Caution

Never delete staging/ or recovery/ by hand. Check pdfs sync queue first. Content there has not reached Proton Drive and exists nowhere else.

Everything in these directories except the keyring is decrypted. See the security model.

config.json

The file is created with defaults on first start. Every key is optional; a missing key takes its default. Edit it while the app is closed, then restart the service (systemctl --user restart proton-drive.service) for service settings to apply.

An unreadable file is never overwritten: the programs log an error and run with defaults until you fix it.

{
  "mountpoint": "/home/you/ProtonDrive",
  "cache_budget": 10737418240,
  "upload_limit": null,
  "download_limit": 5242880,
  "ignore_patterns": ["node_modules/", "target/", "*.iso"],
  "language": "de",
  "proton_theme": true,
  "online_map": false,
  "tray_hidden": false,
  "update_check": false,
  "files_view": { "list": true, "sort": "modified", "descending": true, "folders_first": true },
  "window": { "width": 980, "height": 680, "maximized": false },
  "open_with": {
    "terminal": ["alacritty", "-e"],
    "rules": [{ "match": ["@text"], "command": ["nvim"], "terminal": true }]
  },
  "prompt": { "mode": "fzf", "menu_limit": 50 }
}

Reference

Key	Type	Default	In the app	Meaning
mountpoint	path	~/ProtonDrive	General → Location	Where My files is mounted
cache_budget	bytes	5 GiB	Storage → Cache	Soft limit for cached content. 0 means unlimited. Available-offline files do not count against it
upload_limit	bytes/s	none	General → Network	Shared cap for all uploads. 0 or null means none
download_limit	bytes/s	none	General → Network	Shared cap for all downloads, reads from the mount included
ignore_patterns	list	see below	—	Global ignore rules for synced folders
device_uid	string	none	Computers → Continue This Backup Here… or Sync With This Computer…	The computer this machine syncs into. Unset means "match by hostname"
conflict_sweep	off / report / enforce	report	—	See conflict_sweep
local_first	bool	true	—	See local_first
language	gettext code	system	General → Appearance	Language of the app, tray and prompt, such as de or pt_BR
proton_theme	bool	follow system	General → Appearance	Proton's colours instead of the system theme
online_map	bool	false	General → Appearance	Street map for Places from OpenFreeMap
tray_hidden	bool	false	General → Appearance	Hide the tray icon
update_check	bool	false	General → Updates	Ask GitHub once a day for a newer release and show it over the sidebar. Not offered where a package manager installs updates
update_last_checked	Unix seconds	none	—	Written by the update check, so a restart does not ask again within a day
update_latest	version	none	—	The latest release the update check found
files_view	object	grid, by name	My files view menu	list, sort (name, size, modified), descending, folders_first
window	object	980 × 680	Resizing the app window	width, height (the unmaximized size), maximized
open_with	object	xdg-open	—	See open_with
prompt	object	built-in window	—	See prompt

app_version and user_agent identify the client to Proton. When the keys are absent, the client sends its own release (external-drive-linux@<version>-stable, proton-drive-linux/<version>). Leave them out unless a support case asks for a different value. The fixed external-drive-linux@0.1.0-alpha and proton-drive-linux/0.1.0 that releases up to 3.1.0 wrote here are treated as absent and removed on the next save.

ignore_patterns

Gitignore-style rules applied to every synced folder, in addition to each folder's own .pdfsignore. When the key is absent, these defaults apply:

[".git/", ".hg/", ".svn/", "node_modules/", "target/", ".venv/", "__pycache__/",
 "*~", "*.swp", "*.tmp", ".DS_Store", "Thumbs.db"]

Set it to [] to turn the defaults off. See Synced folders for how excluding behaves.

conflict_sweep

A background task looks for (sync-conflict …) copies that are byte-identical to the file they were copied from.

Value	Behaviour
off	Do not run.
report	Log and show what would be removed; remove nothing. Default.
enforce	Move copies proven identical (same size and SHA-1) to the Trash.

PDFS_CONFLICT_SWEEP overrides the setting for one run of the service.

local_first

A new folder, a new file, a rename or a delete made through the mount is recorded locally and the call returns at once. The change goes to Drive from the queue, the same way it does offline, and pdfs status counts it until it lands.

Set it to false to have these calls wait for Drive again, as before 3.0.0. The switch is there for one release, in case the queued path misbehaves for you; please report it if it does.

open_with

Decides how files picked in the search launcher or the app are opened. Rules are tried in order; the first match wins.

{
  "open_with": {
    "terminal": ["alacritty", "-e"],
    "default": ["xdg-open"],
    "rules": [
      { "match": ["@text", "*.rs", "*.toml"], "command": ["nvim"], "terminal": true },
      { "match": ["*.png", "*.jpg"], "command": ["imv"] },
      { "match": ["@document"], "command": ["$EDITOR", "{}"], "terminal": true }
    ]
  }
}

• match takes file-name globs (*.md, notes-*.txt) or the classes @dir, @text, @document, @image, @media and @any. Patterns are matched against the name in Drive, not against the cached file, which is stored under a content hash.
• command is an argument list, not a shell line. {} is replaced by the path; without it the path is appended. $VAR expands from the environment.
• "terminal": true runs the command inside terminal. When terminal is unset, the client uses $PDFS_TERMINAL, then $TERMINAL, then the first known terminal on PATH, and adds that terminal's "run this command" flag for you.
• default replaces xdg-open for files no rule matches.

prompt

Settings for pdfs-prompt.

Key	Default	Meaning
mode	gtk	Front end used without a flag: gtk, dmenu or fzf
menu	first installed of fuzzel, rofi, wofi, tofi, bemenu, dmenu	Launcher for dmenu mode, as an argument list. {prompt} is replaced by the prompt text; without it, the launcher's own prompt flag is added
terminal	first installed of foot, ghostty, kitty, alacritty, wezterm, xterm	Terminal for fzf mode. {cmd} is replaced by the command; without it, the command is appended
menu_limit	50	Results shown in dmenu and fzf mode
menu_icons	true	File-type icons in launchers that support them

{
  "prompt": {
    "mode": "dmenu",
    "menu": ["fuzzel", "--dmenu", "--width", "60"],
    "terminal": ["foot", "--app-id=pdfs-prompt", "--"]
  }
}

Command-line flags win over the file: --gtk, --dmenu, --fzf and --menu.

Environment variables

Variable	Read by	Effect
RUST_LOG	all	Log filter, for example RUST_LOG=debug or RUST_LOG=pdfs_fuse=debug,info. Default info
PDFS_CONFLICT_SWEEP	service	Overrides conflict_sweep (off, report, enforce)
PDFS_TERMINAL, TERMINAL	app, prompt	Terminal for open_with rules with "terminal": true
LANGUAGE, LC_ALL, LC_MESSAGES, LANG	app, tray, prompt	Interface language when language is unset
PDFS_LOCALEDIR	app, tray, prompt	Load translations from another directory (development)
PDFS_STAND_IN_WIDGETS	app	1 uses the libadwaita 1.5 fallback widgets on newer systems (development)

The tests have their own variables (PDFS_ACCEPTANCE_*, PDFS_SIM_*, PDFS_MIGRATE_DB), listed in Testing.

The systemd service

proton-drive.service is a user unit started with your graphical session (WantedBy=graphical-session.target). It restarts the service whenever it exits, restarts it when it stops answering for two minutes (WatchdogSec=120), throttles it above 2 GiB of memory (MemoryHigh) and stops it at 6 GiB (MemoryMax). To change the unit without editing the packaged file, use a drop-in:

systemctl --user edit proton-drive.service

[Service]
Environment=RUST_LOG=pdfs_fuse=debug,info
Environment=PDFS_CONFLICT_SWEEP=off

Logs go to the journal: journalctl --user -u proton-drive.service -f.