Proton Mail
Contents7
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| Basic Information | |
|---|---|
| Release Year | 2014 |
| Product Type | End-to-end encrypted Email service |
| In Production | Yes |
| Official Website | https://proton.me/mail |
Proton Mail is a privacy-focused email service based in Switzerland, which has partnered with non-Swiss content delivery networks, such as Radware. Proton Mail is part of the Proton suite of privacy-focused online services and software which includes Proton VPN, Proton Calendar, Proton Drive, etc.
Consumer-impact summary
Overview of concerns that arise from the conduct towards users of the product (if applicable):
- User Freedom
- User Privacy
- Business Model
- Market Control
Add your text below this box. Once this section is complete, delete this box by clicking on it and pressing backspace.
Incidents
This is a list of all consumer-protection incidents related to this product. Any incidents not mentioned here can be found in the Proton Mail category.
False advertising and working with authorities (2021.09.06)
- Main article: Proton Mail discloses activist IP address to police
Up to 2021, ProtonMail advertised itself as a private and secure service with the following under "Anonymous email":
"No personal information is required to create your secure email account. By default, we do not keep any IP logs which can be linked to your anonymous email account. Your privacy comes first."[1]
This statement proved to be false, when in September 2021, a member of a French activist group had been using ProtonMail to communicate with other groups. As an investigation was launched involving them, the email provider handed over the user's IP address and other data, including the device they were using.[2][3] The section was changed shortly after getting attention from news outlets and the general public.[4]
Harsh inactive account policy
In 2022, ProtonMail announced a policy that entails the deletion of inactive accounts, resulting in major controversy. Many users have criticised the decisions and advocated for nuanced versions of inactive account policies, such as deleting only the email contents of any inactive ProtonMail accounts instead of the accounts themselves, as the latter would reportedly result in major inconvenience for users who used the accounts as multiple-factor authentications for important services, such as banking. It has also been said that the harsh policy will adversely affect those who had good reasons to become inactive for a long time, such as hospitalisation, prison incarceration, and being in totalitarian countries that have prolonged internet shutdowns.[5][6]
In response, ProtonMail added an exemption, where the inactive account policy would not apply to any accounts that had premium subscriptions, [7][8] although the exemption was revoked as of 2024.[citation needed - any official announcements?] ProtonMail accounts created before April 9, 2024, have a two-year grace period before being subject to the policy, as opposed to one year for newer accounts.[9] In some cases, users have reported success in recovering their inactive accounts after being locked under the policy.[10]
As of 2025, many users continue to voice their concerns regarding the inactive account policy, advocating for sensible measures such as deleting only the contents of inactive accounts while sparing the accounts themselves.[11]
The Proton team has stated on Reddit that the inactive account policy aims to "manage their resources in a sustainable way". In the comments, it was noted that retaining the accounts themselves indefinitely and only purging their contents would not noticeably increase operating costs compared to deleting entire accounts, given that login information is all that would have to be retained. ProtonMail also does not allow registering email accounts with the same address as deleted email accounts to prevent impersonation, which would be possible only because it retains the deleted email addresses in its records.[12]
Data portability
Until around 2023, there was no way for users without a paid subscription to create local backups of all of their emails at once (an example of data lock-in). Paying users could utilise the Proton Mail Bridge to download their emails via the IMAP protocol using an external client, such as Thunderbird or Outlook. In contrast, free users were limited to downloading each email individually, making it impractical for backup purposes.[13]
Since approximately 2023, Proton Technologies has offered an export tool that anyone can utilise.[14]
See also
Link to relevant theme articles or companies with similar incidents.
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References
- ↑ "Secure email: Proton is free encrypted email". ProtonMail. Archived from the original on 2021-08-31.
- ↑ Lomas, Natasha (2021-09-06). "ProtonMail logged IP address of French activist after order by Swiss authorities". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on 12 Jan 2026. Retrieved 2025-11-19.
- ↑ Salter, Jim (2021-09-07). "ProtonMail removed "we do not keep any IP logs" from its privacy policy". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on 9 Dec 2025. Retrieved 2025-11-19.
- ↑ "Secure email: ProtonMail is free encrypted email". ProtonMail. Archived from the original on 2021-09-07. Retrieved 2025-11-19.
- ↑ ProtonMail (2022-04-14). "Protonmail's dormant policy is now in effect". Reddit. Archived from the original on 18 Dec 2024. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ "Protonmail's dormant policy is now in effect". Reddit. 2022-04-14. Archived from the original on 16 Oct 2022. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ "Update to our inactive account policy". Reddit. Archived from the original on 2 Apr 2025. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ Ashwin (2022-04-27). "ProtonMail will not delete user accounts for inactivity if the user had paid for a subscription at any point". ghacks.net. Archived from the original on 16 Mar 2025. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ "Inactive Accounts". Proton. Archived from the original on 31 Jan 2026. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ "Account is no longer available due to inactivity". Reddit. Archived from the original on 22 Feb 2026. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ "Inactive account policy - keep account when deleting data | How can we improve Proton?". protonmail.uservoice.com. Archived from the original on 2026-02-12. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ "Proton's New Policy for Free Inactive Accounts". Reddit. 2025-04-09. Archived from the original on 28 Jan 2025. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ "How to export and import emails". ProtonMail. Archived from the original on 26 Apr 2022. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
- ↑ "How to export and restore emails using the Proton Mail Export Tool". Proton. Archived from the original on 31 Jan 2026. Retrieved 2025-11-20.