First commands

Sign in once, then read your mail, move files in and out of Drive, check your calendar and pull a two-factor code. This is the five minutes from a fresh install to a useful command.

$ proton account login
Email: you@proton.me
Password:
Two-factor code: 123456

✓ Signed in as you@proton.me.

That is the whole setup. Signing in saves the session and unlocks your keys, so your password is needed once on this machine and not again.

If there is no terminal to answer the prompts, name the account and point at a file holding the password. A password is never a flag value:

proton account login --user you@proton.me --password-file /run/secrets/proton

Check where you stand

$ proton account get
Email:       you@proton.me
Name:        Roman
Storage:     ━━━━━───────────────   26%  128.4 GB of 500.0 GB
Max Upload:  5.0 GB
Profile:     default
Session:     valid
Unlocked:    yes
ID:          Kd91mQxT…

Run your first commands

proton mail messages list --unread
proton mail messages get "Invoice #2291"
proton drive items list /Documents
proton calendar events list
proton pass items get github.com
proton contacts list

Every command reads the same way, proton <app> <collection> <verb>, and anywhere one wants an ID, a subject, name, path or address works too.

That grammar is the whole trick: learn it once and you can guess the rest.

Turn on completion

Package installs come with it. For a script or manual install, run the line for your shell from Shell completions. Tab then offers folder names, item types, and the IDs and subjects your last listing showed.

Preview a change before making it

Every command that changes something takes --dry-run. It resolves references, applies filters, and shows you the rows it would touch:

proton mail messages trash --from newsletter@example.com --older-than 90d --dry-run

Anything that removes permanently, or removes what a filter picked out rather than what you named, shows those rows and asks first. See Dry runs and confirmations.

Sign out

proton account logout             # forget the session on this machine
proton account logout --revoke    # and invalidate it at Proton

Revoking also makes the credentials saved on this machine useless, even to someone who already copied them.

Where to go next

Page	What it covers
How a command is built	The grammar, and the verbs
Mail · Drive · Calendar · Pass · Contacts	One guide per app, task by task
Account	Two accounts side by side, unattended sign-in, revoking a device
Scripting	Pipelines, `jq`, cron and systemd
All commands	Every command in one table
FAQ	Is this official? How does it differ from Bridge? Is my password safe?