Proton Mail

Encrypted email from Switzerland.

proton.me

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FreemiumOpen SourceE2E EncryptedAccepts CryptoWindowsmacOSAndroidiOSWebSwitzerland

Pricing Free plan starting at 500 MB (up to 1 GB after setup steps); paid plans from €3.99/mo billed yearly add storage, custom domains and aliases.

If you want private email and don’t want to think too hard about it, start here. Proton Mail uses zero-access encryption, which means not even Proton can read your mailbox. The apps are open source and audited. The free tier is usable rather than a teaser. There are desktop apps for Windows and Mac now, on top of strong web and mobile ones. The one bit of friction is hooking up other mail clients over IMAP, which needs the paid Proton Bridge.

Strengths

  • Zero-access encryption of your mailbox
  • Open source and audited
  • Usable free tier, easy onboarding

Considerations

  • IMAP/SMTP needs paid Proton Bridge
  • Search is limited on encrypted mail
  • Who you email and your subject lines are not end-to-end encrypted

Listed in Email

Proton Mail alternatives

Tuta MailLightweight encrypted mail with its own encryption scheme.PosteoGerman email that minimizes data and can encrypt metadata too.Mailbox.orgGerman email with PGP and an office suite, a notch below Posteo.StartMailDutch email that encrypts all stored mail by default.