Restoring Proton Drive files after a password reset
When you reset your Proton Account password, your encrypted Drive files and photos become temporarily inaccessible, along with emails and other data. This article explains how to recover your Proton Drive files, photos, and albums — including a secondary step required for restoring photos in some cases.
Why are Drive files inaccessible?
Proton Drive uses end-to-end encryption to protect your data. If you reset your password, the encryption keys that protect your files can no longer be accessed due to security reasons. That’s why your Drive data is locked, and you’ll need your previous password, recovery phrase, or recovery file to unlock it.
How to recover Drive files
- After resetting your password, Proton Drive displays the “Your files are no longer accessible due to a password reset. Re-upload the old encryption key to regain access” message at the top. Click Learn more to begin the recovery.
- You have three options:
- Unlock drive (recommended) – Recover your files right away using your previous password (before reset), recovery phrase, or recovery file.
- Unlock later – Postpone recovery and continue using Drive without your previous files.
- Delete locked drive – Permanently delete all existing files if recovery isn’t possible. This step is is irreversible, and all data will be lost.
- When choosing Unlock Drive, you’ll be taken to your Proton Drive recovery settings.
- Click Unlock data and proceed with the recovery steps.
- Your files won’t appear right away — the “Some of your files are no longer accessible. Restore the access to your files” message will be displayed. Click More.
- Select Start recovering.
- Wait for the process to complete. This will restore all previously encrypted Drive files.
How to restore photos and albums (if applicable)
If, before restoring your drive, you uploaded new photos after resetting your password which happens when photo backup is enabled on your mobile device, you’ll need to complete an additional recovery step:
Go to the Photos tab, refreshing the page if needed. There should be a “Restore photos” banner on top. Click Start.
This will merge your previously backed up photos with the new ones, meaning albums, filters and other features will be available again.
