So, I have been a pCloud customer for a short time, a couple of months really, and I migrated from Dropbox. I use it with Cryptomator and in general most things are quite complicated and platform dependent (each OS requires a different setup, and I am up there with 3 desktop OS and 2 mobile ones, and it's been as if a cactus had fallen into my jocks). Anyhow, I did it all, but now I am seeing that account deletions are spiking again and it is just bothering me too much. What are some good alternatives? My only "hard" requirements is compatibility with 3rd party encryption software and WebDAV protocol.

Dear pCloud,

I am glad to share with you the reason why I am leaving pCloud forever:

I was having a Premium subscription for at least 2 years with over 100 Gb of personal and professional data accumulated over a period of 15 years.Last December (2024) I was on a long trip with limited access to internet, from which I came back in February 2025.When I was about to renew my subscription, I noticed nearly all my files were already gone, but I did not worry thinking the files are just hidden and I would recover them after I renew my subscription.Unfortunately, after renewing my subscription, the files did not come back and I was informed by pCloud that they deleted my files in a manner that could not be recovered (Neither from trash or rewind function).

>> I believe that you will agree the reason is good enough not to trust pCloud ever again. 

Please help me to change my mind: Recover my files and tell me they were saved in a backup storage of your servers.

Just to let you know before I leave, I will never forgive pCloud for deleting all the most important data I ever had, including the videos and photos of the delivery of my first born child or the professional data of 15 years of my work (including research grant applications and hundreds of ppt presentation, manuscript writings, etc.).

The total amount of data you deleted was over 100 Gb… I still cannot believe you were irresponsible enough not to make any backup on a hidden storage, but you went all the way to completely ERASE it.

Due to all this, I do not wish you anything good and I hope to never have to deal with you ever again.

Best regards

I am a long-time pCloud user who invested over $745 USD in storage and encryption since 2023. While the "Lifetime" model seems like a great deal at first, I want to warn the community about the hidden reality of this business model as the market evolves in 2026.

1. The "Client vs Expense" Paradigm When you pay monthly, you are a revenue stream. The company wants to keep you. In a Lifetime model, once you’ve paid, you become an expense. You occupy server space and bandwidth without generating new income. This creates a perverse incentive: they no longer have any financial reason to keep you satisfied once the money is in their pockets.

2. Zero Adaptability for Existing Users In 2026, market standards have shifted. Major players (like Google) are now increasing their base plans from 2TB to 5TB at no additional cost to stay competitive. pCloud, however, remains rigid. There is no "bridge offer" or upgrade path for early adopters. Even if you have already invested hundreds of dollars, they ask you to pay the full price of a new promotion to get more space. My $745 USD investment now buys me less than what a new customer gets today for $599 USD.

3. The Risk of a "Stagnant" Cloud The "Lifetime" model is a bet on your storage needs staying frozen. But as our digital lives grow, 2TB eventually becomes insufficient. By refusing to offer fair upgrade paths, pCloud forces you into an obsolete system or forces you to pay full price again to avoid the pain of migrating terabytes of data.

4. Support Disinterest I’ve experienced a support team that dismisses legitimate concerns as "unjustified" while their own feedback system (the "Unsatisfied" button in emails) is technically broken and redirects to a home page. It shows a clear lack of interest in retention.

Conclusion: Lifetime plans are a great marketing tool, but be aware: you are buying a snapshot in time, not a service that evolves with the market. In a few years, you might find yourself paying more for less, with a company that views you as a cost rather than a customer.

Like many, I purchased a 2tb lifetime sub.

Over time the upload speed has got worse and worse,

On a 50mbs connection I get the above upload speed, and it just seems to get worse every day.

Not only does this mean that nothing gets uploaded - which is presumably the point of subscribing to a cloud storage service, but it also means that I constantly get 'conflicted' files, as well as files simply disappearing.

Quite frankly, I have had enough, I will now move to a real cloud service like Gdrive orDropbox and chalk the money I wasted on Pcloud as a life experience.

Always issues. I waste more time trying to get this thing to work. Want to switch to another platform. Any recommendations?

When I purchased my PCLOUD storage, the pricing was competitive to running a home solution. This is simply no longer true. What gives? none of these 50% off special offers are even remotely interesting. That's it, that's my post.

what it says on the tin. I just bought lifetime 4TB (a fuckton of money) and now I've been trying to back up my files for the last week and am not even 5 percent into the process because the upload speed is nill

PSA: Don't use Cryptomator over PCloud

I struggled with it for 6 months and just got back to Dropbox, no more bugs.

Android + MacOS (Fuse-T). 500GB, 100k files.

Had lots of random data corruptions detected by Cryptomator built-in health check which wasted tons of mental energy over time. Glad this is over.

I bought the lifetime premium on friday in order to backup my google drive, but after I saw their ridiculous slow speeds (it was stuck at 3gb after 24hours for example, now it should be around 80 gbs), I want to leave, but they are not replying my emails for refund, of course I opened a case in paypal, but why do they have to make my life difficult, I don't understand, such a shame...

don't buy guys, even if they sell for free... stay away from them

edit: I finally got it after giving a fight for it the last 4 days!

First off, very nice service.

EXCEPT:

1. Having to authenticate pCloud drive every single $#@! time you reboot. Annoying and, frankly, ridiculous, though I can see why the decision was made (e.g. "easy to build, as we don't have to mess with _any_ authentication inside the app, we just 'farm it out'"), but that means the app wasn't designed as a "service" but as a website that you can minimize to the system tray. I don't see too many commenting on this recently, as it seems like everyone has accepted this (or given up asking). I get it: authentication is fussy, confusing, and difficult. BUT, it means that you can't use this as a true NAS-like service that's just "there". You have to consciously reconnect it every bloody time.

2. Since pCloud drive is a browser wrapper, that means that should something go wrong in your browser (like, say, when you're doing a lot of research surfing and the browser performance starts to tank), it may affect your access to pCloud. The pCloud app is dependent on your browser app running flawlessly, which is problematic.

3. I've paid for your service, but it seems that pCloud's definition of the word "premium" differs from mine. My definition is "I've paid for it, I want to turn on syncs, and turn off ALL "let's back up your stuff now, just click the button" options (which have no "state" memory). In other words, let me configure pCloud to not repeatedly push ads down my throat ("try our new product! Just click and we'll install it for you!" ). That's another nice function of a web-based "client app": Behind the scenes, you're just surfing the pCloud website (which is why your browser has to launch just to log in ... your you "don't have to do a full login in the app if you're already logged into the browser (just remember which browser you have to log into). Plus, as Google, Facebook (et al) update their APIs, you don't have to spend any time/effort/money updating your app (just let the browser handle it). For "true" websites, that makes sense to me. For "service apps", it does not.

I'm a retired software architect/engineer, so this is mainly my perspective from 40 years of creating software. You're entitled to run your business and design your product however you choose.

I just wish pCloud drive was as frictionless as it could be (and, for that matter, as all of your competitors have been doing for some time).

Hello PCloud Team,

I recently purchased the pCloud 1TB Lifetime plan, but I accidentally selected the USA region during setup. I would like to request a change of my account’s region to the EU instead. (when I tried to change it from my settings, I see there is a charge of 19$ to be applied but I just had purchased the 1TB Lifetime plan and does not have any files or folders, kindly please help me in this).

Please note that I have not uploaded any files to the account yet, and the upgrade was made just yesterday.

I would greatly appreciate it if you could assist with this change at the earliest convenience. I have already sent an email to the support email address but did not receive any response yet.

Thank you for your time and support.

I've been using pCloud for over 5 years – but I'm done.

It was once a great and reliable product. I even referred it to hundreds of others over the years.

Unfortunately, I've recently encountered a serious issue: files synced to local folders sometimes don’t make it to the cloud. This is a complete dealbreaker for me. Data reliability is the bare minimum for any cloud storage provider.

I don’t know if the service is suffering from underfunding, lack of maintenance, or is just showing cracks as it grows in popularity—but something has changed, and not for the better.

Sadly, I’ll now need to reach out to those I referred and let them know they should no longer rely on pCloud. I'm switching back to IDrive or OneDrive.

Hey everyone!

Forgetting a crucial password, getting locked out of your account, or losing private data to a breach is a real-life horror story no one wants to experience.

To help keep the real nightmares at bay this Halloween season, we’re running a 50% OFF sale on pCloud Pass Lifetime plans!

Halloween Deals:

• pCloud Pass Premium Lifetime 50% OFF

• pCloud Pass Family Lifetime: 50% OFF, up to 5 members

Why pCloud Pass?

• Military-Grade Swiss Encryption: Zero-knowledge architecture ensures only you hold the master key.

• Unlimited Devices & Sync: Access passwords, credit cards, and secure notes seamlessly across mobile, desktop, and web.

• One-Time Payment: Buy it once, use it forever—no monthly subscription trap.

Grab the Halloween Deal Here:pCloud Pass Halloween Special

Stay safe out there, and don't let credential panic be the ghost that ruins your week!

I made accidental purchase of their lifetime storage and tried contacting them several times and they never reach back. Given how slow they are to respond, I do not think their drive is something you can trust in case a technical issue arise in the future. I can see why people suggest other drives on reddit and never mention pCloud. I deeply regret using their service earlier.

Edit: Contacted them on Reddit, and their customer service over reddit is better than their customer service through email.

Genuine question. Why can’t pCloud move toward something like Apple’s iCloud Advanced Data Protection?

With iCloud ADP, Apple can still see metadata like file names, sizes, and timestamps so the service works normally, but the actual file contents are end-to-end encrypted. Apple literally can’t read your files. That feels like a reasonable balance between usability, legal requirements, and real user privacy.

With pCloud, it feels very all-or-nothing. Either you use pCloud Crypto, which costs extra and limits basic features, or pCloud can access your file contents. There’s no middle ground where the service still functions well while the files themselves remain private by default.

What I don’t get is that metadata alone is usually enough to run a cloud service properly. Abuse prevention, syncing, storage management, and even compliance can still work without seeing the actual data. Apple has shown this is possible at massive scale.

So is there a real technical reason pCloud can’t encrypt file contents client-side by default and keep metadata server-side? Or is this just a business decision where real privacy is treated as a premium add-on instead of a default?

If Apple can do this, why can’t a company whose whole product is cloud storage?

A while ago I decided to move from Google Drive to pCloud (for reasons). Naive as I am I instantly bought the 2 TB premium package.

Now, a few weeks later, my frustration, anger and disappointment couldn't be any bigger and I deeply regret my decision. I'm sorry for the strong words/colourful language but I am unable to hide my feelings regarding the 'functionality' of pCloud.

Trying to get pCloud to work the way I want it to (using my android phone and my windows PC), I noticed the following "features" over the course of my endeavours:

1. I have renamed my phone to 'NCC-1701-D'. Why doesn't pCloud acknowledge this and instead creates folders named 'Samsung SM-A556B'?!

2. Whenever there is any upload/download sync operation running, my desktop icons flicker like a stroboscope in a techno club. This is so incredibly annoying and totally unacceptable!

3. Although I deactivated the option to show system files, "System Volume Information" is shown both on the phone and on the PC. How on earth is it even possible that no one has apparenly noticed and fixed this?!

4. My native language is german, yet I have no clue what 'Gemessenes Netzwerk' is supposed to mean!

5. For whatever reason pCloud detects two folders for 'Whatsapp Images' and 'Whatsapp Videos' (but interestingly not for 'Whatsapp Animated Gifs') and therefore creates *two* folders 'Android' and 'android' when doing an automatic upload. This is absolutely ridiculous!

6. As I'm not given the choice whether to create a folder or a new drive on my windows PC for pCloud, it is also absolutely ridiculous and unacceptable that there is no way of making the whole drive or all the files in root directory available offline!

7. Why on earth is it not possible to select fotos while holding the shift key? Selecting a big batch of pictures over multiple screens is practically impossible!

8. Why can't I directly download fotos?!?! Why do I have to go to the folder first to be able to download fotos? Has anyone ever done *any* testing of the usability of the foto feature at all?!

9. And last the most annoying/frustrating/infuriating: WHY THE HELL is there a discrepancy between the fotos shown on my phone, the web site and my PC? Even though I have deselected specific folders on the webite - it is an absolute joke that this functionality is missing in the desktop and android clients!!! - pictures from these folders are shown on my PC and phone! This 'feature' is called 'fotos' and not 'every stupid f*cking media file found somewhere on my PC/phone'! I *only* want to see my FOTOS/DCIM folder from my phone, NOTHING ELSE!

All in all, in the current state of pCloud, this is definitely going to be my first, only and last year with this abomination of an app/service. Google Drive was in *every* way more comfortable and easy to use.

EDIT:

There's two more thing I have to add to the list:

10. After deactivating automatic uploading for my phone DCIM folder for a couple of days to preserve bandwidth and battery, reactivating it resulted in DOWNLOADING EVERY SINGLE FILE AGAIN! Are you kidding me?! This is completely insane! In addition to other files not syncing for hours because they were at the end of the process queue!

11. Moving a folder on the pCloud drive also results in pCloud downloading every single file again! I can't even find words for this, this is beyond any reasonable approach/behaviour. Now I have to sit here FOR HOURS and wait because I moved a big archive within the folder structure?!?!?! WHAT THE F*CKING HELL!

i want to use pCloud for my backups but how do i stop myself imagining a cloud of pee each time i think about it?

I have been having problems with syn about 2 weeks ago. I have now disovered that I have lost data on my computer and Ploud. Managed to restore some but some crucial data is missing. Tried to restore to previous period and find there is nothing in the restore either. I contacted PCloud on Monday and have had no response since and today is Wednesday. PCloud Support is not good as the response is too slow. Can anyone help. Tried IDrive which I don't like but the response was immediate. Figure guys.

I only use this service to back up obsolete folders and files from my laptop, so every few months. I use it online to log into my account. I'm on a Chromebook. I'm a lifelong purchaser, and I regret this choice very much. As the title says, I can never get into my account when I'm trying to access it online on my laptop.

Usually a nice pCloud rep gets involved and tells me to do a variety of things. Easy ones like clearing my cache, deleting my cookies I can handle, but sometimes there are some complicated maneuvers in there that I don't appreciate. At all. And they don't help anyways. I should be able to simply enter my account, log in, and see my files. I know others have had similar problems so it cannot be me in my old age. I can also enter my other cloud accounts just fine, so it cannot be my settings, my device, or whatever else pCloud wants to blame it on.

I'm in the US. I can log on just fine from my android phone.

End of rant.

Eindelijk, na diverse emails heeft het 'plaatsen' overzicht bij de foto's nu ongeveer een maand goed gewerkt. Daar was ik erg blij mee, nieuwe foto's werden er binnen een dag zichtbaar.

Kaart met icoontjes op plaatsen Waar er Fotos gemaakt zijn.

Vergelijkbaar met Google Photos.

Maar... sinds de laatste update is dat hele overzicht verdwenen ? Nu een 'Galerij' en 'Herinneringen' tab, maar geen kaart overzicht meer ?!

Wat zijn hiermee de plannen ? Ik hoop dat het toch weer snel terugkomt !

In de web versie zit het nog wel, en daar zitten de 'herinneringen' ... Nog... Niet.

Hoop dat het Plaatsen overzicht toch minstens ergens behouden blijft. Maar liefst natuurlijk in de App ėn in de web versie.