A private second copy of every photo on your phone. Only you can open it.
Arc Drive backs up your photos and videos while your phone charges. Each one is locked on the phone before it leaves, so nobody else can look at it: not the storage company, not us.
Android 11 or later. No ads, no tracking, no data sold.
Arc DriveHow it works
Set it up once. Then forget about it.
No storage account to create and nothing to configure. You sign in with your email and Arc Drive prepares your own private storage space.
Sign in with your email
We email you a 6-digit code. There is no password to invent, remember or leak.
Write down 24 words
The app shows you 24 recovery words. Write them on paper and keep them somewhere safe. They are the only key to your backup.
Plug in and sleep
The first backup runs while the phone charges on Wi-Fi, with the app closed. After that, new photos follow by themselves.
Why Arc Drive
Built for the day something goes wrong.
A lost phone, a locked account, a mistaken delete. Arc Drive is the copy that is still there, and still only yours.
Private by design, not by promise
Photos are encrypted on your phone. What reaches the cloud is unreadable without your 24 words, and even the file names reveal nothing.
Backs up without being opened
The big first backup runs on the charger and Wi-Fi. It pauses when you unplug and carries on where it stopped, even after a restart.
Long videos included
Videos of several gigabytes upload in pieces and resume after an interruption, even when your phone is nearly full.
A screen that tells the truth
Home says exactly how far your backup has got: "Everything up to 5 minutes ago is safe", or what it is waiting for.
New phone? Minutes, not days
Sign in, type your 24 words, and your whole library is there to browse within minutes. Full-quality originals load when you open them.
Seven days to change your mind
Removed a photo from the backup by mistake? It waits in Recently deleted for about 7 days. Deleting a photo from your phone's gallery never touches the backup.
Take everything with you
"Download everything" puts every original into a folder you choose, at full quality. Your photos are never held hostage.
An open, standard format
Files are stored in the open age encryption format, not one we invented. With your words they can be opened by a free, standard tool, without our app.
No ads. No tracking. Ever.
The app contains no analytics, no ad code and no crash reporters. It talks to your storage and our sign-in server, and to nothing else.
Privacy
We can't look at your photos. That is the point.
Most photo services can read what you upload. They scan it, learn from it, and can lock your account if a machine misjudges a family picture.
Arc Drive is built so that we never hold anything worth reading. Your photos are encrypted on your phone with a key that only your 24 recovery words can rebuild. The key stays in your phone's secure hardware. It is never uploaded, and we never see it.
This has a cost, and we would rather say it plainly: if you lose your 24 words and your phone, nobody can recover your backup. Not even us.
What we know about you
- Your email address, to send sign-in codes
- How much storage your backup uses
- Your plan and whether it is paid
What we never see
- Your photos and videos
- File names, dates, places or faces
- Your 24 recovery words or your key
- What you do in the app: there is no tracking
How it compares
Keep the photo app you like. Add a copy nobody else controls.
Arc Drive does not replace your gallery or Google Photos. It sits beside them as the copy that does not depend on any one company's account.
| Typical big-platform photo backup | Arc Drive | |
|---|---|---|
| Who can open your photos | You, and the company that stores them | Only someone with your 24 words |
| Scanning of your photos | Yes: for search, features and policy checks | Not possible. We only hold locked files |
| If your account is locked | You can lose mail, files and photos together | A separate copy with a separate sign-in |
| Ads and tracking in the app | Usage data is commonly collected | None |
| File format | The company's own systems | Open standard (age), readable without our app |
| Search by faces and things, shared albums | Yes, and very good | No. Arc Drive is a backup, not a gallery |
Plans
Simple yearly plans. The app is free.
You pay for storage, once a year, on this website. Nothing is ever charged inside the app.
50 GB
Around 15,000 photos. Fine if you take few videos.
$19 a year
About $1.58 a month
Get early access100 GB
Around 20,000 photos and 5 hours of video.
$29 a year
About $2.42 a month
Get early access- Photos and videos at full, original quality
- Encryption on your phone, on every plan
- Automatic backup on charger and Wi-Fi
- Restore to a new phone with your 24 words
- Recently deleted, kept for about 7 days
- Download everything, whenever you like
Straight answers
What Arc Drive does not do.
You should know this before you trust us with a copy of your memories.
It is not a Google Photos replacement
No search by face or object, no shared albums, no editing. Because we cannot see your photos, we cannot do those things. Use Arc Drive alongside your gallery.
Android only, for now
Arc Drive works on Android 11 and later. An iPhone app and a web app are planned, not built.
We cannot reset your recovery words
There is no "forgot my words" button. Lose the words and the phone together and the backup cannot be opened by anyone.
It is not the cheapest storage
Phone makers and mobile networks bundle storage for less, sometimes free. With Arc Drive you pay for privacy and independence.
Questions
Good things to ask a backup service.
Where are my photos actually stored?
In a private storage space created for your account alone, with an established cloud storage provider. Your phone uploads straight to it. Photos never pass through our own servers, and what is stored there is encrypted. The data centres are outside India for now.
What happens if I lose my phone?
Install Arc Drive on the new phone, sign in with your email, choose "I already have an account" and type your 24 words. Your library appears within minutes, and the new phone starts its own backup.
What happens if I lose my 24 words?
While your phone still works, your backup keeps running, and you should make a new set of words at once. If you lose both the words and the phone, the backup cannot be opened by anyone, including us. Write the words on paper, and never type them anywhere except an Arc Drive restore.
Will it drain my battery or mobile data?
The large first backup runs only while the phone is charging on Wi-Fi. On battery, Arc Drive only tops up with new photos. If you use another phone's hotspot as Wi-Fi, mark it as "metered" in Android's Wi-Fi settings so the backup does not use its mobile data.
How long does the first backup take?
It depends on your Wi-Fi. On an ordinary home connection we measured about 34 photos a minute and about 10 GB of video an hour, so a 75 GB library takes roughly one night on the charger.
If I delete a photo from my phone, is it deleted from the backup?
No. Clearing space in your gallery never touches the backup. A photo leaves the backup only when you tap Remove inside Arc Drive, and even then it waits in Recently deleted for about 7 days.
Why is there no free plan?
Storing your photos costs real money every month. Services that give storage away pay for it with ads, with your data, or by raising prices later. We would rather charge a small, plain price and owe you nothing else.
How do I pay?
Once a year, on this website. The app never asks for payment details. Payments are not open yet: people in early access will be told before anything is charged.
Who is behind Arc Drive?
Arc Drive is made by TuringArc, a small independent company in India. We are in early access with a small group of testers, and we will be honest with you about what is finished and what is not.
Early access
Be one of the first to try Arc Drive.
We are letting people in a few at a time. Send us a note with your phone model and we will reply with the app and a short guide. Nothing is charged during early access.
Request early access by email