pCloud

Why pick pCloud over the big names? Mostly because you can stop paying.

It sells lifetime plans. You pay once and the space is yours, with no renewal landing every October. None of the big names do that.

On a computer it shows up as an extra drive. Your files look like they're on your laptop but take up no room on it. One App Store reviewer runs a 256 GB MacBook with 500 GB of pCloud behind it and says they've stopped worrying about space.

It's good with music and films, too. There's a player built in, so your own albums stream to your phone, playlists and all.

Moving in is painless. It pulls your files straight across from Dropbox, Google Drive, Google Photos, OneDrive and Facebook.

And you choose where your files live, in a data centre in Luxembourg or one in Dallas. We wish more companies asked.

The private bit costs extra. Encryption where only you hold the key is an add-on at $49.99 a year, and it only covers what you put in a special Crypto folder.

Everything else is encrypted on pCloud's servers, not on your own device. MEGA and Proton Drive lock files on your device as standard, free plans included.

The free plan isn't quite 10 GB, either. You start with 2 GB and unlock the rest by doing the tutorial and inviting friends.

And don't park photos there and forget them. pCloud's terms say a free account left idle for 12 months is deleted, files and all. One App Store reviewer, back in 2019, says that's how they lost thousands of pictures.

Lifetime has small print as well. The terms define it as your lifetime or 99 years, whichever is shorter. Accounts can't be handed on, and if pCloud closed there'd be no refund.

One more. Pick your region with care, because switching later costs $19.99 and shared folders only work between people in the same one.

Start free. It's up to 10 GB and there's no card to hand over.

Premium is 500 GB for $4.99 a month, or $49.99 if you pay for the year. Premium Plus is 2 TB for $9.99 a month, or $99.99 a year.

Now the lifetime plans. The list prices are $279 for 500 GB and $709 for 2 TB, and the page was showing $219 and $499 when we looked. It calls that a limited-time promotion. The small print says it runs until March 2031, so there's no rush.

Is lifetime worth it? Do the sum. $499 is five years of the 2 TB plan. Stay longer and you're ahead. Just remember it's a bet that pCloud is still around.

Families can only buy lifetime: 2 TB for up to 5 people, listed at $999 and showing $749. Teams pay $9.99 a person a month, from 3 people, with a 30-day free trial.

The Crypto folder is $49.99 a year on top. And you get 14 days to change your mind and get your money back. After that, no refunds.

pCloud has 4.7 on the App Store from about 8,200 ratings.

What do the fans like? That it gets on with the job. It sits there as a drive, backs up the phone's photos and plays their music. One reviewer who'd been through a dozen storage apps, Google Drive and Dropbox included, puts it up with their favourites and found it easy to follow.

Lifetime buyers sound happy with the deal. One, writing in 2019, had bought the 2 TB family plan and used it to play their own music without going through iTunes.

The one-star reviews are mostly about accounts, not the storage. There's the free user whose photos went with their idle account. Another couldn't get past the sign-in screen with their Apple login, back in 2021.

On Hacker News it's the name people offer when someone's fed up with Dropbox. One commenter has used it for years with no trouble. Another found WebDAV, the standard way for other apps to reach your files, too slow to be useful.