Sync to Proton Drive in the future?

XCS · 2022-09-15T19:25:42.510Z

Well, where do you back-up your Joplin to? Isn't Proton Drive supposedly one of the most secure mediums to back-up your data (compared to AWS S3 or BackBlaze B2, or even a VPS from a random company).

anon33605855 · 2022-09-15T19:45:55.738Z

Well, I actually operate my own Joplin Server on my own server, deployed with Docker and I also back it up that way (with the recommended method of dumping the pgsql data), daily. Those backups (not only Joplin but the other services', as well) are stored georedundantly, naturally.

Any WebDAV-based solution is at fault, and should not be used for any granular data. It's had it's use 20+ years ago but today it should be used only specialized cases (like with CalDAV and CardDAV, it's extensions). If you take a look at the sync-related problems, 8 out of 10 times it boils down to the faulty ways of WebDAV. It's is..nice to have, so to speak, as a sync option, but not a good one, technologically speaking (and it's not Joplin's or Laurent's fault in any way) and people should move away from it when it comes to syncing Joplin.

Just because you asked.

Daeraxa · 2022-09-15T19:55:35.740Z

I'm not familiar with Proton Drive but from this thread it sounds like it doesn't use WebDAV but its own protocol.
Also of note is that Proton Drive is still in beta so I don't even think it would be worth spending the effort developing it if the protocol could still change (not that I could find much by the way of info about it).

JackGruber · 2022-09-15T20:03:01.972Z

anon33605855:

Any WebDAV-based solution is at fault, and should not be used for any granular data. It's had it's use 20+ years ago but today it should be used only specialized cases (like with CalDAV and CardDAV, it's extensions). If you take a look at the sync-related problems, 8 out of 10 times it boils down to the faulty ways of WebDAV

I can not let this stand as it is.
The problems are almost all on the provider side, because they think they have to implement something special and break the standard (Throttling or faulty implementations, ...).
I sync for years about 36000 items via WebDav to 6 devices without problems. The functionality may be more limited compared to the JoplinServer, but not 8 out of 10 problems are WebDav related.

anon33605855 · 2022-09-15T20:06:40.152Z

I mostly agree and what I meant is that the problem is how WebDAV is set up on most providers, but I thought it was evident. I've used WebDAV for more than 15 years, still using it for Cal and Card, most providers' implementation is..lacking, so to speak.

roman_r_m · 2022-09-15T20:07:17.970Z

Maybe one reason for people often having issues with WebDAV is that there's more than one implementation - Apache, Nextcloud, etc.
And Nextcloud, for instance, does not even fully implement the protocol (LOCK/UNLOCK methods are missing, for one)

anon33605855 · 2022-09-15T20:09:36.995Z

It does use it's own protocol (and it is true for their other products, as well, I'm a subscriber).

XCS · 2022-09-15T22:50:50.334Z

So, for Proton Drive, what should they implement to make it easy to integrate with Joplin? S3-like support?

orbiton · 2022-10-05T15:18:59.323Z

ProtonDrive is not beta anymore. I'd love to see this feature too...

Daeraxa · 2022-10-05T15:25:25.674Z

Do they have a developer API? I've not actually been able to find one.

anon33605855 · 2022-10-05T17:15:17.435Z

They do not, as of now, as far as I know.

orbiton · 2022-10-07T15:45:06.479Z

Wrote to their support... Received an answer:

Filip G. (ProtonMail)

Oct 7, 2022, 13:10 GMT+2
Hello,

Thank you for your message.

Unfortunately, we do not offer an API that can be used from the user's side for such operations.

Do not hesitate to contact us if you have any other questions.

Have a nice weekend!

Kind regards,

Filip G.

Customer Support
Proton Mail

t0dd · 2022-10-07T15:52:57.585Z

kbfs (Keybase Filesystem) is another option as well, though it does seem to struggle with the occasional lockups and whatnot if you toss lots of data at it at once which requires human intervention. Something to keep an eye on for a future possibility. Their git repo functionality is rock solid though (which also uses kbfs in the background).

Anyway. I use kbfs for all my backups of everything. I have for years. For Joplin, I am pretty darn happy with Joplin Cloud.

-todd

Daeraxa · 2022-10-07T15:56:43.267Z

Well I guess that concludes this conversation for the time being then...

GwynethLlewelyn · 2022-11-05T11:09:48.597Z

Keybase Filesystem fangirl here! While it's technically possible to backup Joplin to a local folder (mounted with KBFS), the problem is mostly on the mobile side of things, where Joplin doesn't have an option to write to 'local' folders (at least not on an iOS device, that is).

I wish I understood a bit about how iOS works, because some apps are actually able to write pretty much anywhere on iOS (using the 'More...' file saving option, which will correctly recognise all services properly registered with the operating system) without the need of 'understanding' any of the underlying protocols. On the other hand, apps like Joplin prefer to rely on its own implementation of as many protocols as possible (which are just a handful, at time of writing) without using the internal file-saving facilities.

I have no idea what is required to have an iOS app work in the 'universal' way for saving files. The truth is that even well-established app developers seem to be ignorant that such a functionality exists at all!...

Herve5 · 2022-11-06T11:59:05.557Z

XCS:

Well, where do you backup your Joplin to?

In my case, I first rushed syncs on a basic Dropbox account (with encryption) because I really had one single day before the conference I attended, but my plan is to redirect everything to the NextCloud on my home Nextbox device (NextBox | shop.nitrokey.com)

lambjop · 2024-04-01T16:47:18.724Z

It's over a year since the last post on this thread. Has anything happened since? Does anybody know if there is a possibility now to use Proton Drive with Joplin? I may have missed something.

I'm using Dropbox for now, but I surely would prefer to use Proton.

HarSel · 2024-04-02T07:06:27.964Z

I've been a Proton "Unlimited" subscriber for many years but only use it for mail and VPN. Drive has never worked for me. Other than being incredibly slow compared to others I've tried, some files would get there but usually I'd get a "Something went wrong" message and would not know what files were correctly stored and what files "went wrong." Every few months I'd give it another try, send off a few dozen files and as I recall, I only ever once had a perfect result. All the other times "Something went wrong." It appears to me that Drive is more of an archive type file storage than a real-time update service such as Dropbox so I wouldn't expect WebDAV to work too well, the lag would probably cause timeouts of some sort.

lambjop · 2024-04-02T18:57:16.565Z

I have Proton "Unlimited" since last year. I never thought of using Drive as a computer back-up option. I'm still using the good old local HDD for that. I just use Drive like a safe for scanned documents. So there was never any upload problems because of the size. It just seemed like a good idea to use it for Joplin, but I know absolutely nothing about the workings of WebDAV. So I guess I was wrong.

I found protonmail.uservoice.com last night, and somebody had already requested Webdav support in Nov 2022. It has just over 500 votes. So it may be looked at at some time in the future.
You can find it at the following link if you are interested:
https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/932839-proton-drive/suggestions/45915592-webdav-support

laurent · 2024-04-02T19:05:35.251Z

But Proton have their own proprietary encryption which WebDAV doesn't support, so any solution would most likely involve a custom proxy that would have to run locally.

That may work with the desktop app but probably not with the mobile app, just like their mail proxy is desktop only.