pCloud Reviews 1,631

The product itself works, but the config around it is limited, and the support poor. For instance: the product will start to nag you when you need to upgrade it to a newer version. By default, it nags you every hour, which is annoying if you want to work through and do it at the end of the day. Good news: there is an option to change the nag frequency: after 6 hours, tomorrow, next week, or next version. Great... except that it doesn't respect this setting after installing the new version, it defaults this setting back to 1 hour again. I contacted support to let them know the upgrades were over-writing my preference for this, and they basically told me Tough, you should upgrade to the new version ASAP, and they wouldn't respect my choice for this setting after an upgrade. Leaves a bad taste and annoys me every time a new version is released :-(

Have been using for 3 years now, have the 2TB Lifetime. Have to say, I've had no issues. Works great for my computer backup needs. Will see if that track record will persist - 95 more years to go :D!

Terrible Experience with pCloud on macOS – Constant Issues

I've been using pCloud for a while now, and it has been a frustrating experience, especially on macOS. Here are the main issues:

1. Constant Disconnects: pCloud frequently disconnects from my Mac without any warning. I rely on seamless file synchronization, and this disrupts my workflow constantly. It's unreliable for anyone needing consistent access to their files.

2. Random File Deletions: Several times now, I've found important files missing for no apparent reason. I didn't delete them, and yet they’re gone. This is simply unacceptable for a cloud storage service this size.

3. Restoring Feature is Useless: When I tried to recover some of the lost files, I found the restoring feature to be a scam. It either doesn't work, or the files come back in a corrupted state. For a feature that's supposed to safeguard against data loss, it's just a gimmick that doesn’t deliver.

Overall, pCloud has been unreliable, unstable, and a disappointment. I'd recommend looking elsewhere if you need dependable cloud storage.

I wish I had never bought the lifetime plan.

I've been using pCloud since late 2022 in a workload that comprises of heavy daily syncing and large multi TB folders with thousands of files and it has kept up flawlessly. I have several other cloud services that I'm also a customer of but pCloud is the one cloud service that I use as a de facto benchmark to compare other cloud services to!

I signed up for and paid for their "Lifetime 5TB Family Plan" but only got 2 TB... but happily took my money for the 5TB plan.

They advertise your data is stored in Switzerland... BUT after stealing your money inform you that your data is stored in the US... and moving it to Switzerland will cost an additional amount.

Good luck trying to rectify as they don't provided customer service number and only generic email addresses.

They provide one phone number, (in Switzerland of course), that seems to always be "unavailable."

This can only be described as a fraudulent operation.

They take every opportunity to F-uh-ck you.

I recently encountered an issue and required support. I reached out to the pCloud team, and I was impressed by their quick response and the effective help they provided in resolving my issues. It was truly refreshing to receive such excellent support.

Fits my needs perfectly. Huge amount of storage space, one in a lifetime payment, great stability.

Upload speed is slower than download but that´s a more general thing the way I look at it. It becomes more obvious when uploading huge files. "Download" speed is fast enough to watch an upload movie.

I don´t sync. I don´t do any work that is stored locally on my pc. I use other cloud solutions for this. Therefore I dont need the function.

One suggestion for improvement. I would like to be able to work with typical file formats on Pcloud. It should be possible to develop this?

I wouldn't recommend. I would instead just buy a physical hard drive, and back up there. It's a confusing product to use. I used it on two laptops, to upload to a single pCloud storage space. It's unclear what's being uploaded, how long the upload is taking, and whether the upload has completed or not. Also, when syncing with my second laptop, it would not save changes back to the server, hence dual laptop usage was very tricky.

Not an indictment on pCloud necessarily, but I wouldn't recommend using cloud syncing for files that are being used on two laptops. Just use hard drives.

PCloud as a product has a major flaw.

Unfortunately when sending links in a professional environment (such as branded links), annoying popup promo adverts will appear when your user opens their link.
It makes it look so unprofessional and as if you are using a freebee product, even though you've paid.

Giving the perception of a freebee product would make the end user think that the data being shared was not coveted and/or safe.

PCloud are aware of this issue and prefer to go with their gimmicky popup promos. Just awful.

A huge huge oversight by this company!

pClouds "reported" file upload performance is a scam because it is dependent on hiding files in cache that have not actually been uploaded.
How could pCloud improve? Well, honest real time reporting of transfer speed and progress would help.
But the company's basic business model ensures that it cannot sustain the promises it makes.
Details of my experience:
pCloud uses a "smoke and mirrors" approach to making file uploads look fast. As part of a backup plan I tried uploading an extremely large number of files. It "looked" as if they uploaded reasonably quickly. But in reality even the lag it took to upload was a misrepresentation of what pCloud was actually doing. The real underlying process was merely transforming the files into sequentially named files in a cache area on my PC. To keep pCloud from totally trashing my main "drive" on the computer, I put the cash on a different "drive" (really the same physical drive). Once it has filled your cache, pCloud even stops pretending to upload new files to the cloud, instead a system error is reported. (yep, it is no longer able to fake transfers anymore). I finally stopped the overt transfer process. Now pCloud is VERY SLOWLY uploading the previous files from the cache. If you are only using a single computer I suppose you might not even notice the "sleight of hand" tricks pCloud is playing because if you try to access a file that is an unprocessed upload sitting on your local machine in pCloud "cache", it will just serve up the file as if it had really been on the cloud. Sneaky.
Sneakier yet was that although within pCloud I had set the cache size to their minimum recommended size of 5120MB, the pCloud app has sucked up 383GB!!!!
Like many people, I had first tested utilization of pCloud using one of the "starter" accounts. It had seemed to work OK. But that is one of the weaknesses of "trial" accounts. You are not putting a real load on the system (other people, more clever than I am claim they tested network upload speed on the "free" accounts is unthrottled, but once you are sucked into purchasing storage, pCloud slows the "speed" even as your setting says "unlimited".
Well, as consumers, we should always be skeptical of any service, membership etc that provides a pay-once "lifetime" subscription! Companies cannot survive and continue to provide services without steady income. So anyone (pCloud) or other who advertises a pay-once lifetime subscription is counting on reeling in more and more pay-once subscriptions. This puts an increased load on their resources which is bound to decrease usability of the system. In common parlance this is nothing more than a variant of a "pyramid scheme" (go ahead, look up the basis of pyramid schemes. you will see that it matches pCloud's model! These schemes are by their very structure unsustainable!)
I am truly sorry to have thrown away my money on what is basically a scam!
I do not see anyway in the Trustpilot review interface to include images. I wish there was a way. This way I could more completely illustrate the issue of pCloud grabbing massive amounts of local disk storage above and beyond what I had specified in the configuration settings!

I absolutely hate pcloud and am so very sorry I have basically committed myself to the platform they make it so very complicated to sign in that most times when I want to access my files I simply give up. Looking for an alternative …..

An excellent way to save space on your computer under Swiss law. I got once a problem because I forgot to update my application. The help service solved the issue fairly rapidly and always in a nice and competent way. Great job and thanks to the team !

Used for years now with lifetime subscription, can’t recommend it enough . As a security analyst I can tell you now DO NOT STORE YOUR DATA ON YOUR DEVICE

UPDATE: 19.10.24
I am still getting conflicted files. I have emailed Support
There is a new problem with the player: some playlists now do not play the queue, just one track at a time. I emailed Support about this, too.
The player problem I mentioned earlier below appears to have been fixed. Progress, good.

I've used pCloud for a time now. Very cheap compared to other platforms if you buy a lifetime sub, but be prepared to perform file recovery from time to time.

Pros:
- Cheap, especially when on offer, which is reasonably regularly
- Free music player
- The Crypto option is genuinely useful to protect sensitive files
- Upload and download speeds consistently pretty good.
- Support swift (usually) and reasonable
- The music app is fine. Like others, though, sort order options of playlists is non-existent. This is a pain selecting something specific to play when you have a lot of music.

Cons:
- If you edit, delete, rename or move files, expect problems. Files simply disappear. You can also get a lot of conflicted files for no apparent reason.
You MUST back up your files offline occasionally.
You can mitigate these problems by turning off sync while you change your files, do a full re-sync, then re-sync on any other device first before making further changes on it.
I've not worked out why I get so many conflicted files. These are duplicates of files, the second copy of which has [conflicted] appended to the filename. But this seems to happen to any files, not just those I've edited or renamed.
- Updated web music player (August 2024) is flaky. It plays the same song in a playlist twice, or repeats the last song when you try to play a new one etc.. The previous version was fine. I use Firefox, but have not tested other browsers. I can't see what browsers pCloud say they support, so I assume Firefox is supported. It would be easy to say in a browser session if it's not.
- Dodgy business model? It's like a pyramid scheme: you pay up front to get the best deal (but there are annual subs as well). How do they propose to maintain revenues if they are not charging monthly fees, will one-off payments run out of gas? But if I get 6-7 or more years use out of them, I am winning comapred with other platforms.

Conclusion:
The subscription model is more common these days. It's good you can stop using a service and simply stop paying, but many subscriptions leads to high monthly costs.
Wait for a special offer over and above the usual third off or so and pCloud one-off payment is a bargain. As long as:
- You are prepared to back up and occasionally recover files (it can be fiddly).
- You are okay to risk getting into a suspect business model (assuming users are like me and go for the up front payment)

And pCloud, please:
- Fix the web media player
- Allow sorting of playlists by filename in the app!
- Improve sync.

deleted all of my data after I didn not renew!

Not support the latest versions of Mac since ventura, sonoma and other newest
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Edit: I contacted support serval times, and still have the same issue serval month ago, i always got obsolete fixes that not work and its not the case for me only, check on reddit there is a lot of threads of clients complaining about this issue!!

using pcloud lifetime for more than 3 years now and i love it. bought it exclusively to stream videos for our business. at first it was a bit slow but it really improved a lot. the only thing missing in my opinion is that it doesnt have a built in document viewer like dropbox and drive. would rate it 5 stars if they have it honestly.

Very quick response and service to my enquiry. Thanks!

Worse product, avoid, they dont backup external drives , they delete it if you disconnect to have money, they say they dont, but they do

Got a one year 500GB plan with my Private internet access account.

Speeds are excellent, it backs up my phone and PC and they keep deleted files in the trash bin for a long time so if you regret a deletion you get plenty of time to undo it.

Seriously considering buying a lifetime plan after my subscription is over, just worried about it getting terminated like my old Polar Backup plan did.