Rclone: The Swiss Army Knife for Migrating Your Data to Infomaniak

Migrating terabytes of data between cloud services can quickly become a nightmare. Download locally then re-upload? Too slow. Proprietary tools? Often limited. Fortunately, there\'s Rclone: an open-source command-line tool that revolutionizes cloud data management. Discover why professionals love it.

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What Is Rclone?

Rclone is a command-line program for managing files on cloud storage. Users affectionately call it "the Swiss army knife of cloud storage" or even "technology that feels like magic".

Specifically, Rclone lets you:

• Sync files between your computer and the cloud
• Migrate data from one cloud service to another (without going through your machine!)
• Back up your data with encryption
• Mount cloud storage as a local drive
• Verify file integrity with MD5/SHA1 checksums

Over 70 Cloud Services Supported

Rclone\'s strength lies in its near-universal compatibility. Among the supported services:

And many more: MEGA, FTP, SFTP, Azure Blob Storage, Oracle Cloud, etc.

Installing Rclone

Rclone is available on Windows, macOS, Linux, and even FreeBSD.

Windows

The simplest way is to use Chocolatey or download directly:

# With Chocolatey
choco install rclone

# Or direct download from rclone.org/downloads

macOS

# With Homebrew
brew install rclone

Linux

# Official install script
curl https://rclone.org/install.sh | sudo bash

# Or via repositories (Ubuntu/Debian)
sudo apt install rclone

Configuring Infomaniak kDrive with Rclone

Here\'s how to connect your Infomaniak kDrive to Rclone:

Your configuration will look like this:

[kdrive]
type = webdav
url = https://connect.drive.infomaniak.com
vendor = other
user = your-email@domain.com
pass = *** ENCRYPTED ***

Migrating from Google Drive to kDrive

This is where Rclone becomes magical. You can transfer files directly between two cloud services, without downloading them to your machine.

Step 1: Configure Google Drive

rclone config
# Create a new remote "gdrive" of type "drive"
# Follow the OAuth authentication instructions

Step 2: Launch the Migration

# Copy all Google Drive content to kDrive
rclone copy gdrive: kdrive: --progress

# Or sync (also deletes files absent from the source)
rclone sync gdrive: kdrive: --progress

Useful Options

# Simulation without modifying anything (dry-run)
rclone copy gdrive: kdrive: --dry-run

# Limit bandwidth to 10 MB/s
rclone copy gdrive: kdrive: --bwlimit 10M

# Exclude certain files/folders
rclone copy gdrive: kdrive: --exclude "*.tmp" --exclude "Backup/**"

# Transfer in parallel (4 simultaneous files)
rclone copy gdrive: kdrive: --transfers 4

# See which files would be copied
rclone copy gdrive: kdrive: -v --dry-run

Practical Migration Examples

Migrating OneDrive to kDrive

# Configuration
rclone config
# Create "onedrive" of type "onedrive"
# Create "kdrive" of type "webdav" (see above)

# Migration
rclone copy onedrive: kdrive:Migration-OneDrive/ --progress

Migrating Dropbox to kDrive

# Configuration
rclone config
# Create "dropbox" of type "dropbox"

# Migration
rclone copy dropbox: kdrive:Migration-Dropbox/ --progress

Backing Up to Swiss Backup (S3)

Infomaniak also offers S3-compatible Swiss Backup:

[swissbackup]
type = s3
provider = Other
endpoint = s3.swiss-backup.net
access_key_id = YOUR_ACCESS_KEY
secret_access_key = YOUR_SECRET_KEY

Advanced Features

Data Encryption

Rclone can encrypt your data on the fly with the crypt backend:

[kdrive-encrypted]
type = crypt
remote = kdrive:Encrypted/
password = *** ENCRYPTED ***
password2 = *** ENCRYPTED ***

Your files are encrypted before being sent—even Infomaniak cannot read them.

Mount as a Local Drive

# Mount kDrive as drive K: (Windows)
rclone mount kdrive: K: --vfs-cache-mode full

# Mount as folder (Linux/macOS)
rclone mount kdrive: ~/kdrive --vfs-cache-mode full

Bidirectional Synchronization

# Bisync (experimental but powerful)
rclone bisync kdrive: ~/Documents --resync

Rclone vs Native Tools

Tips for Large Migrations

• Use --dry-run first – Always simulate before executing to verify everything is correct
• Run in the background – Use screen or tmux for long migrations
• Limit bandwidth – Avoid saturating your connection with --bwlimit
• Enable logging – --log-file=migration.log to keep a record
• Verify afterwards – rclone check source: dest: compares checksums

Graphical Interface Available

If the command line intimidates you, know that Rclone offers an experimental web interface:

rclone rcd --rc-web-gui

Third-party projects like RcloneBrowser also offer a complete graphical interface.

Conclusion

Rclone is an essential tool for anyone working with multiple cloud storage services. Whether you\'re migrating to Infomaniak, syncing backups, or mounting remote storage, Rclone gets the job done reliably and efficiently.

Its open-source nature, free availability, and compatibility with over 70 services make it the perfect ally for taking back control of your data and moving it to sovereign hosting like Infomaniak.

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