European alternatives to Microsoft OneDrive.

Anyone already inside Microsoft 365 gets OneDrive as the default cloud storage, wired into Windows, into Office, and into the Desktop/Documents/Pictures folders through Known Folder Move. The company behind it, Microsoft Corporation, publicly listed on NASDAQ as MSFT, runs the service on Microsoft Azure, with the consolidated group under CLOUD Act jurisdiction. For a German procurement team writing a Schrems II transfer impact assessment, or a European agency storing client deliverables, that ownership and infrastructure profile is what prompts buyers to evaluate alternatives, even with Microsoft's EU Data Boundary in place, since that changes where data sits, not who legally controls it.

Nine European cloud-storage alternatives are verified here against OneDrive, checked against who legally owns the company, where the data physically sits, whether files are end-to-end encrypted, and whether the platform holds a recognised European compliance framework (ISO 27001, BSI C5, EUCS, SecNumCloud).

Three names anchor the shortlist: Proton Drive is the strongest privacy-first option from the Proton ecosystem (Switzerland, Geneva, EU-owned, EU-hosted, CLOUD Act exposure: None), Tresorit is the enterprise standard for European cloud storage with zero-knowledge end-to-end encryption (Switzerland, Zurich, EU-owned, EU-hosted, CLOUD Act exposure: Material via its sub-processor chain, while file contents stay end-to-end encrypted), and kDrive by Infomaniak is the most cost-competitive Swiss-hosted choice for SMBs that want OneDrive-style file storage plus built-in Office co-editing without the price premium (Switzerland, Geneva, EU-owned, EU-hosted, CLOUD Act exposure: None).

What actually makes the jump to a European cloud-storage tool?

• Native sync clients for Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android, matching coverage across every alternative here.
• Shared folders with role-based permissions.
• Public share links, each with optional password protection and an expiration date.
• File version history, typically 30 to 180 days back depending on the plan tier.
• Office-document co-editing: kDrive and Nextcloud integrate OnlyOffice or Collabora for real-time Word/Excel/PowerPoint co-authoring.
• Automatic mobile photo backup, supported by Proton Drive, kDrive, and Nextcloud alike.

Where the gaps show up:

• Native co-authoring inside the Microsoft 365 desktop apps. Replaced by OnlyOffice or Collabora (paired with kDrive or Nextcloud) for browser-based co-editing, or CryptPad for E2E.
• Tight Windows and Microsoft 365 integration: Known Folder Move, the Office "save to OneDrive" default, and SharePoint document libraries. European alternatives sync the same folders, but the OS-level wiring is something you reconfigure.
• Teams file backend. If your files live in OneDrive because Teams puts them there, moving storage means deciding what happens to the Teams/SharePoint layer separately.
• OneDrive's Personal Vault. Several alternatives are stronger here, since Proton Drive, Tresorit, Filen, and Internxt encrypt the whole drive end-to-end rather than just one folder.

A OneDrive migration is mostly about folder wiring, not raw file count, since the files themselves move cleanly. Six steps:

1. Turn off Known Folder Move first. If Desktop, Documents, and Pictures are redirected into OneDrive on Windows, point them back to local folders before you start, so files are not moving underneath you mid-migration. This single step avoids the most common OneDrive-migration data scare.
2. Export your OneDrive file tree to a local staging area. Use the OneDrive desktop client (or download from the web) to pull the full file tree to a local drive. This becomes your canonical staging copy, and the upload to the new vendor happens from there rather than through a direct client-to-client sync, which tends to resume more reliably if the connection drops.
3. Re-share folders after migration, do not try to preserve share links. OneDrive share-link URLs cannot be ported. Plan to reissue share links for active client and team folders, and send each recipient a notification with the new link. Most teams discover during this step that a large share of their old links were stale anyway.
4. Set up the new desktop sync client on every machine before the cutover. Tresorit, kDrive, Nextcloud, and Proton Drive all have desktop sync clients. Install in advance, get team members logged in, and verify the sync folder shows the new vendor's tree. Then on cutover day, the only step is to unlink the OneDrive client.
5. Decide the SharePoint and Teams files question separately. Files that live in SharePoint document libraries or Teams channels are not in personal OneDrive and migrate on their own track. Map which content is genuinely personal OneDrive versus shared SharePoint before you move, so you do not duplicate or orphan team data.
6. Keep the Microsoft 365 plan active, not cancelled, for 60 days. An Office app still saving to OneDrive by default, a Power Automate flow saving attachments, or a colleague sharing into the old drive are the kind of loose ends that tend to surface only in week three. Keep the subscription live for 60 days while you confirm nothing still writes to OneDrive.