Alternatives to Google Drive

How many files do you have on Google Drive? Work documents, scanned personal papers, photo backups, spreadsheets with financial data. All of that material is accessible to Google, which analyses it for its own purposes. And if one day Google decides to close your account for a terms of service violation — which happens more often than you might think — you'd lose access to everything.

The alternative cloud services we recommend fall into two families. "Zero-knowledge" clouds use end-to-end encryption: files are encrypted before leaving your device, and not even the provider can see their contents. These are the ideal choice for sensitive documents and important backups. More traditional cloud services offer storage with a stronger privacy stance than Google — often based in Europe and GDPR-compliant.

If you have technical skills, self-hosted solutions are also worth considering: set up your own personal cloud on a server or NAS at home and you have complete control over your data. Nextcloud is the best-known project in this space, offering functionality that goes well beyond simple storage — contacts, calendar, and document collaboration included.

One important note: whatever service you choose, always keep a local copy of your most important files. Cloud storage is convenient, but it should never be the only copy of something you care about.