How to Migrate Between Cloud Storage Providers (rclone, Cyberduck, and the One-Evening Process)
Moving 500 GB between cloud-storage providers takes one overnight rclone run plus a 30-day overlap window. Here is the step-by-step with the tools that work for every major provider.
Why the migration is easier than it sounds
Moving cloud-storage providers used to require manual download + upload — slow, error-prone, and impractical above a few hundred GB. Modern open-source tooling (rclone) does the entire transfer server-to-server in a single command, with progress reporting, resumable transfers, and integrity checks. A 500 GB migration that takes 12 hours of unattended overnight transfer was a multi-day human-attended copy a decade ago. Two evenings of work cover almost any consumer migration.
The tools that handle every major provider
rclone (rclone.org) is the canonical CLI tool. Free, open-source, supports Proton Drive, pCloud, Sync.com (via WebDAV), MEGA, Backblaze B2, S3, Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, and 30+ other providers via a uniform `rclone copy` interface. Cyberduck (cyberduck.io) offers a GUI for users who prefer drag-and-drop and supports the same provider list. For Google-to-Google migrations specifically, Google Takeout exports everything as a ZIP archive that any other provider's web upload can ingest.
The 6-step process
(1) Sign up for the destination provider and verify the storage quota matches or exceeds the source data size. (2) Install rclone and configure both source and destination remotes (one-time, ~10 minutes per remote, requires an OAuth or API-key flow). (3) Test with a small folder: `rclone copy source:/test dest:/test --progress`. (4) When the test passes, run the full transfer overnight: `rclone copy source: dest: --progress --log-file transfer.log`. (5) When complete, run `rclone check source: dest:` to confirm file counts and hashes match. (6) Keep the old account active and the data intact for 30 days as a safety net before cancelling.
Common pitfalls and how to avoid them
Cloud-native documents (Google Docs / Sheets / Slides) are not files — they are objects in Google's database. rclone exports them as .docx/.xlsx/.pptx during transfer, which works for the document content but loses comments, version history, and named ranges. If those matter, export selectively via Google Takeout instead. Shared folders do not transfer ownership — re-share from the new account after migration. Filename character restrictions vary: some providers have stricter rules than others; rclone reports failures explicitly so you can rename and retry.
Sources
rclone documentation: rclone.org. Cyberduck: cyberduck.io. Google Takeout: takeout.google.com. Vendor pricing pages (for sizing the destination): proton.me/drive/pricing, pcloud.com/cloud-storage-pricing-plans.html, sync.com/pricing, idrive.com/pricing, mega.io/pricing, backblaze.com/cloud-storage/pricing. All URLs accessed 2026-04-30.