Proton MailReviews 

There are aspects of the products that are great, but the way they arrange the pricing model appears to be designed to force you towards the unlimited product because there is so much missing from smaller packages.

Crucially, once you start using their service, you will become virtually locked in to the paid model. E.G. if you start using an additional email address, and later decide to downgrade, you cannot use the 2nd email address at all to receive or send. It wouldn't let me change to a different cheaper plan because I wasn't meeting the lower threshold of that new plan, but did not explain why only providing an error message and reversing the payment. It has been an arduous effort to remove emails, email addresses items on drive, change all accounts that were using protonpass's aliases etc so that I could go from unlimited to just mail plus. I will certainly be changing provider as I found one that offers custom domains for free.

If deciding to use their premium service for mail, my advice is to make sure you have and use a custom domain and DO NOT use the proton email addresses at all. that way if you find their service to be unsatisfactory, it is fairly easy to move the custom domain to another provider.

A company that built its brand on privacy and transparency has now become a symbol of silence and neglect.
2.1 stars is not just a number — it’s a reflection of every unanswered ticket, every ignored user, and every broken promise of “security with care.”

People trusted Proton because they believed in integrity. What they got instead were automated replies, slow support, and a wall of encryption — not for privacy, but to hide from accountability.

Encryption protects data, not reputation.
It’s time to fix the human side of security — before your “privacy brand” becomes an empty slogan. 🔥
👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻

Update – Follow-up after company reply:
Thank you for replying.
Just to clarify — I’m not a Free user. I’m a Proton Mail Plus subscriber, and my support ticket #4106963 has been open since October 28th, still with no resolution.

I appreciate the reminder about “response times,” but numbers mean nothing without action.

I didn’t ask for automation — I asked for accountability.

Encryption builds privacy. Communication builds trust.
Proton used to do both — but lately, only one of them seems to matter.
🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩
✨ Update – After Resolution:

Sometimes, the real strength of a company isn’t measured by how perfect things start, but by how sincerely they make things right.

After my previous review, the Proton team reached out with genuine care and professionalism. They didn’t just respond — they listened, clarified, and acted.

That’s the Proton I believed in — a company that protects privacy and respects people.
I’m proud to change my rating to 5 stars, not because of perfection, but because they proved integrity still matters.

💜 Thank you, Proton Team — you’ve restored both trust and respect.
— Abdullah Alfifi (@ALFAFIABDULLH)

Email helped me testing something, testing is excellent!

google told me its free, downloaded it asked for money not free! W why asked for 3 plans lowest 9.99 a month and for my card W

Don’t use the @pm.me domain in Proton — when your subscription ends and you can’t pay, they simply take your address, and you lose access to every service where you used it. Some users once kept their addresses for receiving mail, but Proton later changed the rules, turning it into pressure: pay or lose everything. They hide behind claims that it “supports free plans,” but in reality, it’s unethical marketing built on fear and user lock-in.

*For Proton’s marketing team who “handle user feedback”:
- You can repeat the same line about “supporting free plans,” but it doesn’t change the fact that taking away users’ addresses after payment stops is coercion, not sustainability. People trusted you because you claimed to respect privacy and freedom — yet you built a system that punishes those who can’t pay. You take users’ email addresses away when they can’t pay, knowing it can lock them out of dozens of services. No other provider does that. It’s not about privacy or data — it’s about control.

That’s not ethics, that’s manipulation disguised as principle.

The customer service is literally a nightmare. I was in a doom loop login for hours trying to get a live chat pop up window, while their chatbot shined me on. Then it dawned on me: there is no customer support that's why there's no pop up window, not chat button that magically appears if you pass through the mystical support portal and are found worthy. Run as fast as you can.

When your inbox become full you get a mail from Protein.com.
You are asked to sort your inbox, throw out unnecessary emails to create space in your inbox again, or buy and upgrade your proton e-mail... since I can't afford an upgrade I emptied my email. This resulted in me no longer receiving emails, I am now only able to send emails but not receive despite having created space in my inbox - FANTASTIC MANIPULATION TO FORCE PEOPLE INTO A PAID EMAIL!!!!!

They don't earn money with you as a product, so to get the full experience you need a subscription, but this is fair. If you get a subscription, the product is awesome.

A process made too complicated...

It takes between 24 and 48 hours for ProtonMail support to think about assisting with a problem, and they will only then send text links unless you agitate, that’s not support.
I tried to set up a paid Protonmail account with my new domain name and despite all the auto messages telling me it was connected and verified, I was told by support, by email, on the only occasion they ever responded before I complained, that it was not connected. Nothing ever worked and they wouldn’t help, be wary of trusting this provider to handle business messaging unless you are tech savvy or have IT support
Ticket No (4089317)

I finally resolved my Proton Mail connectivity issues after receiving more support following my Trustpilot comments. Support is technical and aimed at people who are already tech savvy, so be prepared for a steep learning curve or paying a professional.
It took me a almost a week to get the email to work. Support could be better and instructions redesigned to reflect the growing demand for more casual users or cost-aware small business owners.

Do not download or use, until Proton has improved their product.

Protons VPN and Drive are horrendously slow, beyond usability sometimes.

Passwords, great. Alias feature, awesome.
Authenticator App, tried that too. Also great.

Everything else is borderline unusable.

Say what you will about the privacy of Google, but the products work.

If I have to disconnect from your VPN to receive an email, or message. It's broken. If I download my entire proton drive offline and then have to struggle to open a file, or if I delete one it doesn't sync so it re-appears, then it's broken.

Drive is broken.

Edit: I already contacted you Proton. There are no errors, just a bad product. Search the internet, gather the feedback, improve the product. Don't try and make it seem like my end needs troubleshooting, it doesn't. None of the 5 differently configured devices and networks I tested on before submitting this review need troubleshooting.

Ma come si fa a ricevere aiuto? Ho compilato form di richiesta aiuto, ho scritto mail, ho cercato di contattarli telefonicamente ma non esistono numeri di telefono né chat... da parte loro nessun cenno di risposta, neppure una automatica. Eppure è già passata quasi UNA SETTIMANA.
Secondo voi questo è un modo serio di gestire un servizio critico come la posta elettronica business?
Stavo pensando di spostare tutti i miei clienti su Proton, ma se i tempi di risposta sono questi, ho seri dubbi che faccia per me.
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Update 20 Oct.
Of course, I opened a ticket; it was the first thing I did. Two days ago, I finally received a response, but it was an automated reply, rather than useful information, to which I immediately replied with a full account of the whole issue.
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Update 23 Oct.
Another three days have passed. No response to the ticket. I am seriously considering closing the services, requesting a refund, and migrating elsewhere.

If I could give this proton app which I think is a piece of crap a -5star I would. PROTON is so awkward to use not even the IT Techs I use know how to work with it! PROTON. support service is the worst. I actually think that there is no support it's is just a bot. I have ever seen in all the years since computers first came about in the late 801's. In fact I would say the reason they are so bad is if there are real people they themselves don't understand their own product if you forgot you password for any reason you lose your entire data base and any email you may have

These reviews here are absolutely awful and not true at all. I've been using Proton Mail and VPN since May 2024 and I am absolutely beyond satisfied. It is very nice to see that Proton also offers a Mac app, something not a lot of mail providers do. Their UI is beautiful and very easy to use on both Mac and iPhone/iPad. Emails are secured and also block known transfer. Never had a system outage whatsoever. Literally everything works exactly as intended. Do not trust these negative reviews.

Joined this email company from Gmail several years ago and discovered the format was very similar, so that made everything really easy.
But now a recent upgrade where they want users of a free account like mine, move to two paid for others offering more extras that I do not want. I am happy to pay £4.99 a month, but not for more extras I don't need, because now the basic format has changed. The basic format has now been changed to make it more limited to encourage me moving to a paid subscription. For instance a notification of "x" emails unread, but not highlighting them so I know which to read. Deleting a vast mass of spam emails is now not possible and more.
No I will go back to Gmail now with no more hassle from this company and be relieved in my ageing years for my future.
Having been online since 2000 with my first PC has taught me a lot. New companies spring up and encouraged new subscribers and when they exceeded a certain level, they changed their tactics, create an advanced level that they think will enhance their business, but the subscribers do not and leave. I am now one of them.

I purchased the Proton Pass annual family plan, but the app is full of bugs — attachments don’t open and it keeps crashing on iPad.
I only used it for 3 days and requested a refund (Request #4044049), but it was refused just because I had refunded Proton VPN last year — a totally different product that also didn’t work.

After nearly 20 emails, support kept repeating “refund not possible” without offering any real help or fixing the bugs.
It’s extremely disappointing and unfair. A company shouldn’t mislead users into paying for a broken service and then refuse responsibility.

Suddenly billed 838 euros when I am in the US and signed up for a monthly low level plan. Then customer support is not existent. DO NOT USE - I can’t see how I will ever get $ back and there are far better ways to get encryption. But the BILLING Is UNConscionable!

Just had an email forwarded from my Gmail account to Proton through my auto-forward. Gmail had blocked it, but Proton let it straight into my inbox. Trust broken.

Been a paying customer since 2018 and never had a problem.
Been using most of their offering. Mail, VPN, Drive.
Recently started using Proton Pass as well. Works flawlessly for me.

Five stars!

Where do I start? Customer service is non existent. In the year 2025 I have to wait an entire business day (so if you email them on Friday you have to wait until Monday for a reply) for technical support. When you are in the middle of a migration and run into an issue, and you are paying them $120, you need tecnical support now and not in 3 days. And when the person replied back, he only replied to HALF my questions.....Unbelievable.
Their email export tool is absolutely useless. But what really did it for me is the fact that they only allow 3 levels of subfolders...again in 2025 only 3 levels of subfolders.
I requested a refund as I cancelled within 4 days of signing up (well within the 30 day guarantee) and of course I never heard back from them. It's now day 4 of waiting to hear back. So, they are getting a chargeback. STAY AWAY. I really wanted to support them and make this work but they made it impossible

Sure here is my original case number: 4038827. You can talk to your representative Laze. It’s been a week and I never heard back from your refunds department. So basically you are holding my $120 hostage for no reason. I will bring this forward to the Swiss Federal Consumer Affairs Bureau FCAB.

This service surely has got many nice features. Even the Android app seems OK. But the free version is rather limited. One example: I have 3 free folders for emails…. Adding more folders should cost 5 € each month, which to me seeems A LOT.