pCloud Drive

pCloud Drive connects a Windows machine to the pCloud storage service operated by pCloud AG. Rather than downloading a full copy of the account to disk, the client registers a virtual drive that appears alongside the physical drives in File Explorer. Folders and files are listed as usual and open in ordinary applications; the content itself is streamed from the server on demand and cached only as needed. The practical effect is that an account far larger than the local disk can still be browsed and worked with normally.

Alongside the virtual drive, the client offers a conventional two-way sync folder for material that should exist locally at all times, and a backup mode that uploads selected folders on a schedule. Older revisions of a file can be restored for a retention window that depends on the plan, and deleted items are recoverable for a similar period. Sharing is handled through invite links or shared folders with read-only or edit rights, and the desktop app can generate those links directly from the shell context menu. Client-side encrypted storage is available through pCloud's Crypto feature, which is sold separately from the base storage on personal plans.

The program suits people who want a large online drive reachable from Explorer without dedicating disk space to it, or who want an off-site copy of selected folders from a laptop with a small SSD. Users looking for a pure local backup tool with disk imaging, or for a self-hosted alternative where the data never leaves their own hardware, will be better served elsewhere: pCloud is a hosted service and the client is not useful without an account. The virtual drive relies on a filesystem driver, so installation and some updates require a reboot, which is worth knowing on tightly managed machines.