Proton Mail Reviews 1,707

I use their free tier and I really like it. I switched for the increased privacy (3 yrs ago) and have seen no downside. I use gmail at work and there's nothing google offers that I don't get with proton mail. I've slowly been buying into their whole eco system of apps. Planning on getting a paid account soon.

I'm surprised people are so negative on the reviews. Some are people complaining that losing their password encrypts their old emails.. That is how it works unfortunately. Privacy comes at the cost of convenience.

Reached out to customer support once and got what I needed dead quick. Great given I am on a free tier.

Was a premium user for a couple of years. Then I spotted a transaction of £1 by proton from my PayPal account which I did not authorise so I queried it with PayPal. At that Proton froze my account. It took an awful lot of effort to get it back. I decided to use another email provider and simply revert to a free Proton account. Mysteriously, I am now locked out of my free Proton account! Avoid proton it will just frustrate you

I had ProtonMail accounts since 2019. Without any warning, they permanently suspended all of them. When I asked for clarification, support replied:

“Be advised that your account has been disabled as a result of a direct connection to an account that was taken down due to violations of our terms and conditions while being used in a malicious manner… We consider that allowing access to your account will cause further damage to our service, therefore we will keep the account suspended.”

They never gave any specific evidence or details. When I asked for the actual reason, they ignored me.

The irony is painful: ProtonMail markets itself as a privacy-first service, yet they were able to “link” and ban all my accounts based on vague “connections.”

Be extremely careful paying for their service. You can lose everything overnight with almost no recourse.

I switched to Tuta and couldn’t be happier.

EDIT 06/29:

Proton, you don't need my ticket number. Respond to all your unanswered queries and eventually you'll respond to mine.

I think Proton is a good privacy-focused alternative to other workspace providers like Google. I set it up with two of my custom domains and have the Unlimited plan.
I do, however, think it could improve on the Photos feature in Drive. At current, it requires any viewer to have an account, which is not the same for general Drive files. This is a downside as competitor Google Photos allows a direct URL without a Google account.
I also dislike that they keep pushing me to move from a monthly to a yearly subscription. I chose monthly for a reason, I'm actually giving you more money, and I'm still being badgered whenever I open settings.

On another note in my experience their customer support / service has been good.

Proton Mail is declining: Broken core features and clueless support

​As a Proton Unlimited subscriber, I am deeply disappointed with the current state of Proton Mail. The Android mail app is severely lagging behind, missing essential features that are only available on the web version. Software updates feel entirely superficial—often just "changing a green button to blue"—and core mail development seems abandoned. Instead of fixing long-standing bugs, resources are clearly being wasted on half-baked features like their AI assistant, which doesn't understand anything and too often just tells you to do a web search yourself instead of providing an actual answer.

​Lately, Proton Mail has failed at its most basic job. The Gmail integration and forwarding stopped working completely, and the inbox sync constantly gets stuck. I have verified everything, and my settings are exactly as Proton's official documentation requires. Privacy and security mean absolutely nothing if the email client cannot reliably receive or sync messages.

​The final straw was the abysmal customer support. I submitted a meticulously detailed bug report regarding these email delivery issues, filling out every single field perfectly.

​My issue summary was clear: "Proton Mail is not importing emails from Gmail and is loading slowly."

​The support response I received: "Could you clarify what exactly you hope to achieve?"

​If premium support cannot comprehend a basic bug report about their own email service, it is time to take my business elsewhere. I am leaving the ecosystem.

Billing system is a trap — paid to upgrade yearly plan, money taken, nothing delivered.

My free trial ended. Proton attempted to charge my card, it was declined as I didn't have funds on it at the time. Fair enough. I then went back in, sorted it, and paid directly to upgrade to a higher yearly plan. Payment was taken from my card successfully.

Upgrade was never applied. I was told there is still an unpaid invoice on the account from the original failed charge, and that I cannot make any changes until that is settled first — meaning I would have to pay again on top of what I've already paid for a full year upfront.

I contacted support. The response was unhelpful and did not resolve anything. No escalation offered, no goodwill, no solution — just a copy-paste explanation of their billing logic.

In 2026, a customer proactively paying a full year upfront to upgrade their account should not result in money being taken with nothing received and support that goes nowhere. Avoid if billing issues are a concern.

Ticket reference: 4860525

Abuse department of Proton hides behind their TOS; while users obviously are abusing their service. Has nothing todo with privacy, but a commercial platform for online bullying. Refuses to take action even when the full evidence and logs are provided.

Long-time user: An excellent ecosystem, but serious concerns regarding neutrality.

As a user for over 7 years, I had never left a single review for Proton AG until now.

Today, I remain highly satisfied with the daily use of the products, their fluidity, their ergonomics, and the overall ecosystem. However, as a paying user (on high-tier plans) for all these years, I have several "red flags" to raise that are beginning to seriously worry me.

1. Political neutrality: A promise in jeopardy?
Originally, I chose Proton because I aligned with the values you promoted, particularly on two essential points:

- Absolute political neutrality (everyone is treated equally, regardless of their stance or ideas).
- A true, secure ecosystem with no backdoors or data reselling.

On the first point, I am starting to have strong concerns. If you look into it (and it is well-documented), several public figures have recently had their Proton accounts closed or their sponsorships terminated. Interestingly, these personalities all lean toward the same side of the political spectrum. I find it deeply regrettable to claim to be "apolitical" and "neutral" but fail to apply these rules to yourselves. I am not politically active at all, and no political side appeals to me, but that doesn't mean a tech company should position itself as a judge.

In today's world, where censorship is becoming commonplace, what will happen if the organizations meant to fight against it start doing the same? For my part, this raises serious questions about Proton's vision on this matter.

2. Product development and community feedback
On a technical level, I am globally very happy with daily use. However, as a paying customer, I would like to point out two downsides:

- improvements requested by the community for a very long time are still not available (with the development of Lumo AI seemingly being prioritized instead).
- software tools expected by users would have been much more relevant to develop than this AI project.

Conclusion
I am currently adopting a "wait-and-see" approach. These shifts make me fear that Proton is drifting away from its initial principles—a classic pitfall for any entity once significant financial interests come into play. I am watching closely, and I sincerely hope I won't be forced to abandon a ship I used to love so much.

In the last two days tried logging into ProtonMail (as i have done countless times), only to receive a red dialogue box saying my account's been disabled to "protect" me from "suspicious activity". Have appealed and got what i can only explain as an AI scripted response, "Are you using a VPN, by any chance?" NO, I am NOt using a VPN, and the rest is a infantile level of inane and innocuous replies, trying to placate. Absolute abysmal behavior from a company that sells itself as somehow being a bastion of human rights, and being prosumer, when in fact they've just revealed themselves as globalist, ultra-surveillance lapdogs. Absolutely disgraceful, and if ever i'm allowed to log back into the sideshow that is ProtonMail, will immediately cancel subscription and move to a proper, service driven email service provider that has a clue! ProtonMail, here's a 7-point repository... think creatively about how you can use it!

I purchased a product, wasn’t 100% on how to install, but the support service they provided was very good instant replies. Great experience with Proton, i have to give them 10/10

Upon first attempt of signing up for something, I got automation flagged. I literally have never used protonmail. Won't be coming back, go to tuta mail. They won't render their email service immediately useless.

Does privacy matter to you? Then you have come to the right place. Proton is a privacy-dedicated email and VPN provider based in Switzerland. Being outside the EU, they do not have to abide by the hysterical whims of unelected EU bureaucrats bent on "regulating" your thoughts and ideas.
Proton is affordable and offers a lot of great software. Highly recommended.

HORRIBLE SERVICE Ticket Numbers 4807582 and 4807528 - No response all through the day. Locked my accounts and said my account is scheduled for deletion the moment I created a new address@my domain name for my business (I pay for a Business Workspace Account). I regret switching from Google Workspace. I have to find another alternative. All my incorporation documents are in my mailbox.

They have no LIVE CHAT, NON EXISTENT CUSTOMER SERVICE that NEVER responds on all platforms (email, X etc). AVOID at all costs, they will RUIN your business. ABSOLUTE NIGHTMARE

I am a free user and my experience with ProtonMail support has been frustrating mainly because of response times and lack of updates.

My accounts were suspended by the automated anti abuse system after I created accounts while migrating from Gmail for my game accounts. I contacted support immediately and, to their credit, the anti abuse team did reply and offered a resolution: they were willing to restore only one account. I accepted that offer and provided the account I wanted restored.

However, after that point, communication basically stopped. I waited about a week without any further reply or update on my ticket. Because of the silence, I became worried that my case was stuck or no longer being processed.

I understand that free users may not receive priority support, and I appreciate that support did offer some form of resolution. But long periods without updates, especially after a case seems close to completion, make the process stressful and unclear.

My main criticism is not the decision itself, but the lack of follow up and communication.

ProtonMail deserve to get rated low by everyone here, this is the last time i ever gonna use this service, so good bye.

I love their service, especially the integration with SimpleLogin, but something I HATE is that their email client for windows doesn't apply a dark mode for the email body.
I also hate that they focus on launching random services that nobody wants, instead of fixing/improving the existing ones.

can't attach images to emails. i have hyperfast internet and regardless of whether i use proton in my browser, on my phone or the mac app, simple images spend 8-10 minutes attaching to an email and then i get a notification saying request timed out.

staggeringly dreadful for an email service that i pay for. do not under any circumstances pay for protonmail. i complained about this last year and they still haven't fixed it. i will be cancelling my subscription and using gmail instead. atrocious value for money

I used to use Protonmail for three purposes: filter out nuisance emails to a separate inbox from my personal, mask my identity due to my personal email's domain, and as a backup in case I am to lose access to my personal. Protonmail has now chosen to fail all points.

Let's start with the crux of this problem: my account was terminated without warning. I had logged in less than a year ago to access an email sent to this inbox, I had no warnings sent to my backup in case, you know, I may have been having issues with the email? No, instead, I am not told of any of this, and I suddenly have account errors on various services.

Next, the customer service is poor, insanely poor. When reaching out, they do not have a time frame for when they respond. My own job is to be a customer support representative, and we respond to tickets with a quick acknowledgement and any details in minutes. Anything that takes longer, and we let the customer know. Proton has chosen the path of an automated response and no hours or days they will reply in. Utterly pathetic and a waste of time.

Now, I have to go fix every account that uses this backup. Never using this service for my new email if they dare decide that their incompetence is my fault. Unacceptable.

Lost my device and couldn't locate the password I used for the account so I did a password reset. now my old emails are encrypted and because the recovery methods are "use a prior device or remember your old password or upload a recovery key/file" i now cannot access my old emails. these are not regular person methods of recovery. if you're looking for user friendly, Proton ain't it.

Avoid this company like the plague, they completely ignore your UK Statutory rights, if you complain they never read the complaint just blindly state their company policy, even though it’s illegal. Currently disputing with my bank, hope they charge them an enormous chargeback fee. AVOID! AVOID! AVOID!

Originally, I chose ProtonMail because of its FOSS web client, sieve support, the capability to contact support personnel, and that its UserVoice instance provided a way to vote on feature requests.

I intend to leave Proton Mail, because I see no way to acquire server-side IMAP credentials, for AOSP e-mail clients, which I require, to respond to mail on Proton's servers, via different providers. Bridge may provide this for desktop OSes, but that's useless 50 % of the time, because I'm not always at a laptop.

Although I don't utilise their other services, this is also true for Contacts and Calendar, which offer no CardDAV or CalDAV.

Additionally, their ZenDesk instance's web interface has been disabled, rendering accessing ticket information incredibly difficult without e-mail account access.