Jottacloud Review 2024: Good Quality & Low Price?

Jottacloud Provides Cost-Effective Home and Business Cloud Services

Jottacloud is a cloud storage and backup service with an easy to navigate UI and user-friendly mechanics. It’s designed for both personal and business use and has features like multi-device syncing, lost file recovery, mobile document scanning, and advanced security protection.

If you’re a business owner, you can enjoy unlimited users in the Business Large plan. But you’ll need to look elsewhere if you have a large family, since Jottacloud Home only allows five users per plan, even at its highest-paid tier.

Jottacloud is a reliable, low-cost cloud service option – but is it the right solution for you?

I’ve tested out and explored its features and performance so that you don’t have to. Keep reading to see what I found and to find out if Jottacloud is the cloud service that best fits your needs.

Basic Functionalities for Moderate Storage and Backup Needs

Many of Jottacloud’s features can be considered basic, but it has a few that stand out.

For example, you can use Jottacloud’s Apple TV app to view your photos and videos on a full-screen. There’s even a mobile feature to cast to another device from a Chromecast-enabled phone.

There’s also one of my favorite features for business plan users: shared folders with team members that automatically sync to their computers and instantly update with any changes.

Easily Back Up Files Using Jottacloud Applications

Jottacloud lets you run backups on a schedule and offers an automatic option for both your phone and computer.

Automatic backups are the default, so you’ll have to change this setting if you have different preferences. You can’t schedule backups on mobile, so I left my settings on automatic to avoid having to remember to manually back up my files. For the desktop app, you can choose a custom or set schedule, depending on your needs.

External and network drive backups are also possible – just connect the drive to a computer that is running Jottacloud client (the desktop app) to access its files and transfer information.

Jottacloud also has file type exclusions, like application, system directory, AppData, temporary, and program files. I successfully backed up my Drive’s folder, but you’ll need to find another tool if you want a full computer backup.

Straightforward Data Restoration

You can restore data easily with Jottacloud. Go to the Restore tab in the desktop app and choose your folder to start the download. On the web app, click Backed up, and select the three dots to the right of the file name to download it as a zip file. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to mass restore files via the mobile app – so be prepared to download any files you need individually.

Deleted files or folders from Jottacloud client have to be emptied from the web app’s trash to permanently remove them, otherwise, they’ll remain for 30 days before they are deleted forever.

Jottacloud’s Security Offerings Are Top Notch

Security is definitely where Jottacloud excels.

It uses 256-bit encryption to secure your data while in transit and only TLS/SSL for all of its API and application endpoints. Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) and HSTS prevent private key decryption and phishing, and the optional two-factor authentication helps ensure that your account can’t be hacked with just a stolen password.

You can see full privacy information such as logged-in devices, logged in browsers, and login history in the web app using Settings>Security.

The mobile app and web app have similar user interfaces so, once you learn one app, you’ll be able to easily navigate the other. The desktop app is well structured and doesn’t require any in-depth learning to operate, but is a bit outdated in its design.

Set Files to “Offline”

I really like that you can set certain files in the mobile app as “Available offline” to make them viewable without an internet connection. Although WiFi and data are pretty widespread these days, this is an awesome “rainy day” feature.

Bandwidth Control Options

The ability to limit your bandwidth is a feature I think all cloud services should have. Excessive usage can slow your computer down while backups are running, which can be frustrating and inconvenient. Limiting your bandwidth is only available via Settings>Bandwidth in the Jottacloud client app.

View Your Upload or Download Status

The Transfers tab on your desktop app conveniently displays the status of your files. The progress, upload/download speed, and size are also displayed on this page. I like this feature a lot but would prefer if buttons for pausing, canceling, and resuming your transfer were available on this screen too.

Microsoft Office Online

With you sign up for Jottacloud, both home and business, you can enable the Office Online feature. Office Online doesn’t carry all the features of the full applications, but allows you to create, view, edit, and share Word, Excel, and Powerpoint files on the web. This is a great feature for students and professionals who work with Microsoft Office often.

Setting Up Your Account

I signed up for Jottacloud using Facebook, but you can also use Apple, Google, or your email.

Once your account is created, install the desktop app, select your operating system, and follow the installation instructions. You can access your files on the website app, but it’s mainly useful for managing your account.

Next, select which folders you want to continuously back up and sync files from Jottacloud to and from your computer. If you want to backup folders that aren’t displayed, you’ll have to add them later.

And, that’s it – Jottacloud client is now up and running.

The mobile app can be downloaded from Jottacloud’s website or via the Play Store or App Store. Be warned: it’s sometimes frustrating to use. While the backup is running, the app slows down considerably. You can still access your files, but I experienced glitches, app freezes, and quite a bit of lag.

My favorite mobile feature is the contact backup that you can turn on during setup or adjust via the settings. Set this feature to automatic, weekly, or monthly and then conveniently restore your contacts at any time.

Quick and Easy Backups

To see how quickly Jottacloud could back up 3GB, I ran four separate tests, spread out across a few days and times. My WiFi speeds averaged 139Mbps on uploads and 165Mbps on downloads, prior to these tests.

On Wednesday at 7:45 am, I used a stopwatch to track the backup and was surprised when 3GB of the 4.4GB folder uploaded in only 25 minutes. I averaged an upload speed of 22Mbps during those 25 minutes and had my bandwidth set to unlimited.

My second test was around 6:30 pm on the same day and took even less time: 22 minutes at 24Mbps.

My third test was at 11:20 am on Thursday and took 21 minutes with the same upload speed as the second test, 24Mbps. Saturday morning at 9:00 am was my final run and it ended with similar results to Thursday’s test.

On average, it took 3GB – uploading at around 25Mbps – less than 25 minutes to upload, regardless of the time or day of the week. Given that I’m in Trinidad and Tobago, 8,000+ miles from the servers in Norway, this upload speed was impressive.

After it backed up, I restored the same folder to test the restoration speed. It took less than 5 minutes for 3GB of data to download and under 7 minutes for the entire 4.4GB folder.

One downside for performance is that Jottacloud doesn’t provide a backup summary. The most recent upload/download speed will show up at the bottom of the app, but disappears once the transfer is complete.

Airtight Foreign Privacy Policies Keep Your Data Secure

Jottacloud is owned and operated in Norway and is protected against US legislations, like the Patriot Act, and alliances like Five Eyes.

According to the company’s privacy guarantee, Jottacloud operates solely under Norwegian jurisdiction. The guarantee also ensures that there is no storage monitoring and user data can only be obtained with a warrant issued by the Norwegian government. Although private encryption is not available, Jottacloud’s advanced security systems ensure that it is not necessary.

Having Issues? Don’t Bet on Customer Support

Jottacloud has a few ways that you can contact them for support.

• Live chat
• Email support
• Phone
• Online Help Center

The Help Center was simple to use and had helpful articles on synchronization, file sharing, privacy policies, home and business subscriptions, and more.

Jottacloud claims to have a 24-hour response time, but my experience says differently. It took a combined five days for chat support to fully reply to my questions about multi-device syncing and offline file restoration. The email and chat support appear to be rolled into one, so if the Help Center or phone support aren’t working, you may be out of luck.

Thankfully, the support consultant I spoke with was knowledgeable and friendly, even if their response times were poor.

Ideal for the Budget-Friendly User

Jottacloud’s pricing plans are very affordable. There are two main service types, Jottacloud Home and Jottacloud Business. Each plan allows you to sync as many devices as you want, but you’ll be limited to the number of users in your plan.

I love that Jottacloud has free options – many of its competitors don’t offer any long-term unpaid subscriptions.

Jottacloud’s Free Personal is great for individuals and comes with up to 5GB of storage. The paid Personal subscription gives you unlimited storage, but once you hit 5 TB your upload speed is reduced. Jottacloud doesn’t say by exactly how much.

The only difference between the Home subscriptions is the storage capacity. The Home 1 TB plan is the cheapest and includes a terabyte of storage that is shared between up to five users. If you have medium-level storage needs (like a couple of college students), you can opt for the popular Home 5 TB or the Home 10 TB. If you have massive amounts of files and data (read: thousands of family photos), you’ll need the Home 20 TB plan.

The Business subscriptions are similar, but let you store data for commercial purposes.

The Business Free 5GB plan allows up to two users and is ideal for sole proprietors or a two-person team. The Business Small is the same as the free plan but offers 1 TB of storage instead of 5GB. The highest tier is the Business Large subscription and is best suited for companies with over ten employees. Each plan has just 1 TB of storage, so, if you require more storage, you’ll have to purchase it by the terabyte.

You can only pay for your subscription via credit card (Visa or Mastercard). PayPal, Bitcoin, and Apple Pay aren’t currently supported.

Since there are long-term free plans available, there’s no need for any free trials. Jottacloud, at the moment, doesn’t appear to offer consumers any type of money-back or satisfaction guarantee.