Installation

The command is proton. Every install also puts proton-cli beside it as a second name, so a line written either way runs.

Platform	Install
Linux, macOS	curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/roman-16/proton-cli/main/scripts/install.sh | sh
Windows	irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/roman-16/proton-cli/main/scripts/install.ps1 | iex
Homebrew	brew install --cask roman-16/tap/proton-cli
winget	winget install Roman-16.ProtonCLI
Arch	yay -S proton-cli-bin
Fedora, RHEL	sudo dnf install ./proton-cli_*.rpm
Alpine	sudo apk add --allow-untrusted ./proton-cli_*.apk
Nix	environment.systemPackages = [ pkgs.proton-cli ];
npm	npm install -g @roman-16/proton-cli
Go	go install github.com/roman-16/proton-cli/cmd/proton@latest

The install scripts drop the binary in ~/.local/bin (Linux, macOS) or %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\proton-cli (Windows). Both take a version and a directory:

curl -fsSL …/install.sh | sh -s -- --install-dir /usr/local/bin --version 2.5.0

& ([scriptblock]::Create((irm …/install.ps1))) -InstallDir "C:\tools\proton-cli"

Note

go install builds don’t embed the CAPTCHA helper that release binaries carry. If Proton asks for human verification at login, use a release binary instead. See Human verification.

Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint

The APT repository updates proton with the rest of your system:

sudo install -d -m 0755 /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://roman-16.github.io/proton-cli/gpg.key | sudo tee /etc/apt/keyrings/proton-cli.asc >/dev/null
echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/proton-cli.asc] https://roman-16.github.io/proton-cli stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/proton-cli.list
sudo apt update && sudo apt install proton-cli

Nix flake

To track the latest release rather than your nixpkgs channel:

inputs.proton = {
  url = "github:roman-16/proton-cli";
  inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
};

environment.systemPackages = [
  proton.packages.${pkgs.stdenv.hostPlatform.system}.default
];

Downloading a binary

Every release ships raw binaries, archives and checksums.txt on the releases page, named proton-cli_<os>_<arch> for linux, darwin and windows on amd64 and arm64.

curl -LO https://github.com/roman-16/proton-cli/releases/latest/download/proton-cli_linux_amd64
curl -LO https://github.com/roman-16/proton-cli/releases/latest/download/checksums.txt
sha256sum --check --ignore-missing checksums.txt
chmod +x proton-cli_linux_amd64
sudo mv proton-cli_linux_amd64 /usr/local/bin/proton

On Windows, download the .exe, rename it to proton.exe, and put its folder on your PATH.

The .tar.gz / .zip archives also bundle the licence and shell completions. The .zip carries proton-cli.exe as a real file, since an archive cannot hold a link.

Shell completions

Package installs wire these up for you. For a manual install:

proton completion bash > /etc/bash_completion.d/proton
proton completion zsh  > "${fpath[1]}/_proton"
proton completion fish > ~/.config/fish/completions/proton.fish

One script covers both names, except in fish, which looks for a file named after the command being typed:

echo 'complete -c proton-cli -w proton' > ~/.config/fish/completions/proton-cli.fish

Updating

Installed with a package manager? Update with it. Otherwise proton updates itself:

proton update             # install the latest release
proton update --check     # only report whether an update exists
proton update 2.5.0       # install a specific version

An install that no package manager owns has nothing to tell it a release happened, so proton says so itself, once a day, after the command has finished:

$ proton mail messages list
…

proton 2.4.1 → 2.5.0 available.
Run `proton update` to install it, or `proton changelog 2.5.0` for what changed.

It stays quiet when a package manager owns this copy, when stderr is not a terminal, and under --quiet. PROTON_NO_UPDATE_CHECK=1 ends it for good.

proton changelog prints what each release changed - the whole file, one version, or --since 2.3.0 --until 2.4.0 for a range.

Uninstalling

Package installs go out the way they came in. Script and manual installs remove themselves:

proton uninstall --dry-run       # show what would be removed
proton uninstall --yes           # remove the binary without asking
proton uninstall --yes --purge   # also delete saved sessions and the ID cache

Uninstalling cannot be undone from here, so it asks first, like every other permanent removal.

Building from source

Needs Go 1.26 or newer:

git clone https://github.com/roman-16/proton-cli.git
cd proton-cli
go build ./cmd/proton

That plain build has no CAPTCHA helper. For a release-shaped binary, see Contributing.