Everything you need to know!
You can register for Proton-Mail here. Upon registration you can choose whether you would like a free or paid account. Please check our pricing page for details on all available subscriptions.
If a captcha is presented during the registration process, please check here if you need help solving the captcha.
Yes, when sending emails from Proton-Mail to Proton-Mail, all emails are encrypted automatically end-to-end on your device. You do not have to enter any passwords.
You can choose the 'Default delivery': Encrypted ('Confidential') or not encrypted ('Not confidential'). You can also switch whether an email is encrypted or not when composing the email by clicking on the lock symbol. Emails to other Proton-Mail users are always encrypted by default.
Yes. Proton-Mail uses a preshared password for sending an encrypted message to an external recipient, i.e. to someone who does not use Proton-Mail.
Here we explain how to switch the default so that emails to external recipients are sent not encrypted and without a password.
If using one of the paid plans, you can add aliases to your account. You can also switch to larger alias packages. Refer to our pricing page for details.
Click on 'Show Email Aliases'. Click on the plus symbol to add aliases. A pop-up opens where you can type the alias you want to add. Click on the three-dot button to choose the domain for your alias. This can be any of the Proton-Mail domains or of your custom email domains that you have added to your Proton-Mail account.
Please note: It is technically not possible to delete aliases with a Proton-Mail domain. These can only be deactivated. Deactivated aliases remain linked to your account in case you want to activate them again in the future. When you are using your own domain with Proton-Mail, you can delete aliases with your custom email domain and create new ones.
If you need more than five aliases, you need to buy a larger alias package here, even if the aliases are deactivated.
You can change the default sending address to your own domain alias (or any other alias) by changing the default sender here in your mailbox→ 'Default Sender'. This will make your alias the default sender. However, the main address of your Proton-Mail account (name in tab) will remain unchanged.
To change the alias upon sending an email, click on 'SHOW'. Then click on the pen symbol next to the sender and choose the alias you want to send an email from.
Yes, Proton-Mail is a green email service that relies exclusively on renewable energy for all email systems.
Proton-Mail was subject to an extensive penetration test by the SySS GmbH in November 2013. During the tests the experts were not able to access the system or to retrieve any confidential data.
Yes, Proton-Mail offers secure business email accounts with lots of whitelabel customizations. You can place the login for your employees directly on your website with a whitelabel domain. Proton-Mail also offers Secure Connect, an open source encrypted contact form so clients can get in touch with you confidentially directly on your website. Learn here how to use Proton-Mail in your organization or company with your custom email domain.
Here's a list of all whitelabel customizations for business use. Here's an instruction how to whitelabel Proton-Mail for your business, how to add the encrypted contact form Secure Connect to your website and more.
Yes, you can customize the logo and colors in Proton-Mail when you book whitelabel.
Yes, Proton-Mail supports extensive customization options for business use such as custom colors, custom logo, custom text in the message to external recipients and more. To customize Proton-Mail, you need to book the Whitelabel feature.
Secure Connect is an open source encrypted contact form which enables every visitor of your website to contact you confidentially. Check here how to book Secure Connect and how to send an encrypted message via Secure Connect.
Yes, Proton-Mail as an encrypted email service is perfectly suited for any business that would like to use a GDPR-compliant email service.
Yes, right after registration of a business account you will find a data processing agreement directly in Proton-Mail under Settings -> Subscription.
Yes, an encrypted calendar is integrated into the Proton-Mail mail client.
Please check that the time zones of your devices are in sync, including daylight saving time.
If you are using Firefox/Tor Browser with resistFingerprinting option in about:config, this automatically resets the browser time zone to UTC, which then leads to sync issues.
Yes, Proton-Mail will include a whole set of collaboration options such as working together on task lists and documents in the future. You can already book this collaboration tool. Right now it is called 'sharing feature' as you can now share your encrypted calendars as well as email templates with other paid accounts. This is the first step, more collaboration options will be added in the future.
The Proton-Mail clients use REST services but there is no public documentation for that API or for a library, yet. Keep in mind that when user data is stored in or read from Proton-Mail, it has to be encrypted/decrypted on the client. You may of course dig into the open source code of Proton-Mail and integrate with your product, but at this time we can not provide any support for this. We will add a public API documentation in the future.
The date format for your mailbox as well as your calendar is picked either from your language settings in Proton-Mail or from your system/browser settings. If you pick 'English' under 'Settings' -> 'Appearance', the American date format is displayed. If you pick 'Automatic' under languages, the date format of your browser/system is displayed. If you pick any other language, e.g. French, the date format of this language, e.g. French, is displayed.
You can switch the subscription in Proton-Mail by upgrading or downgrading. After upgrading you can also book further extensions such as larger storage or alias packages, users, the Business feature and more.
When booking a paid subscription in Proton-Mail, you can pay via Credit Card (Visa, Mastercard, American Express), via PayPal or via bank transfer. Payment via bank transfer is only available for business customers in the EU.
If you have problems paying for your Proton-Mail subscription, please contact our sales team.
No. When a password is used for authentication (login), it is not necessary that it is known to the server you want to authenticate with. The server only needs a fingerprint (hash) of your password. With Proton-Mail your hash for authentication is calculated by your browser and only the hash is being sent. Your password never travels the Internet in plain text and it is never seen by our server. As hashes are non-invertible, the server is unable to reconstruct your password from the hash. The server is not able to decrypt your message, but still able to log you in.
Recommended for further reading: Learn how Proton-Mail automates the encryption process while leaving you in full control of your encrypted data.
If you can't login to your account, this has been caused by one of the following reasons:
Our secure password reset feature enables you to reset your account yourself. Please write down your recovery code somewhere safe.
If you think your password was disclosed to someone else but you can still log into your account, please do the following:
If the attacker had been logged in as well, changing the password automatically logs them out.
We encourage you to always use 2FA with your accounts as it makes it close to impossible for an attacker to log into your account.
If you can not log into your account any more, please check this FAQ.
Go to Settings - Login and click on the pen symbol next to 'Recovery Code' to show the code or update it. To do this, you need to enter your password.
Your password is salted and hashed with Bcrypt on your device before being transmitted to Proton-Mail. Bcrypt is the most reliable method because brute-force attacks need much more time in comparison to conventional methods such as MD5 or SHA. With this method we guarantee an integrated confidentiality and we allow you to access and decrypt your emails from desktops and mobile devices instantly.
Proton-Mail uses a password strength indicator that takes several aspects of a password into consideration to make sure your chosen password is a perfect match for your secure email account. You can find additional tips on how to choose a strong password here.
Proton-Mail has no limitations in regard to the password length or used characters; all unicode characters are respected.
A secure password is one that is random enough that it cannot be guessed in a feasible amount of time. But random strings of alphanumeric characters are hard to remember. That's why we have implemented a passphrase generator that finds a good balance between security and memorability. The generator chooses six easy words from a huge curated list and outputs a passphrase that is secure as well as easy to type and remember. Here are more tips on how to create and remember a strong password.
Yes, Proton-Mail supports two-factor authentication with U2F and TOTP. Here are details on how to set up your second factor in Proton-Mail.
Yes, you can secure the stored app login with a pin, pattern or biometrics (fingerprint, Face ID etc.) after activating this feature. Please go to Settings -> Login -> Credentials encryption mode to activate this. This option will only show after you have stored your login credentials in the Proton-Mail app. You will find more details here.
If you click on 'Logout', you log out. Please note: If you have previously saved the password, you are now logged out, but the password is still saved for automatic login. To 'unsave' the password, please log out. The login screen appears, click on 'More' and 'Delete credentials'.
Encryption and decryption of data always happens locally on your device upon login. All data is end-to-end encrypted and only you can access the data with your password.
Proton-Mail encrypts all data stored in your mailbox (contacts, emails, email signature, inbox rules, invoice data, payment method, certificate and private keys of your own domains). When sending an email, Proton-Mail encrypts subject, content and attachments automatically.
You can find a detailed explanation about what is encrypted in Proton-Mail on our security page.
We can read only the following metadata:
We are looking into possibilities to hide the metadata in the future as well.
Your private and your public keys are generated locally within your browser upon registration. Your private key is encrypted with your password. This way your login password receives the status of the private key. The key is encrypted so strong that only you can use the key for encrypting and decrypting data. This is why a strong password is essential. An automatic password check on the client makes sure that you use a strong password. Your password is never transmitted to the server in plain text. It is salted and then hashed with bcrypt locally on your device so that neither the server nor we have access to your password. With this innovative design you can access your encrypted inbox from any device (desktop, mobile) easily.
For the email encryption between users, Proton-Mail uses a standardized, hybrid method consisting of a symmetrical and an asymmetrical algorithm. Proton-Mail uses AES with a length of 128 bit and RSA with 2048 bit. Emails to external recipients are encrypted symmetrically with AES 128 bit.
Proton-Mail automatically encrypts all emails stored in your mailbox. Emails between Proton-Mail users are automatically encrypted end-to-end, emails to external users can be secured with the help of a password. Here we explain the differences between a confidential (end-to-end encrypted) and a non-confidential email.
Independent of the end-to-end encryption, the transport between client and Proton-Mail servers is secured with TLS to maximize security.
The Proton-Mail servers are located in secure and ISO27001 certified data centers in France. All saved data are subject to the strict French privacy protection laws. Independent of that all data is end-to-end encrypted and cannot be read by the Proton-Mail GmbH as the provider or by any third party.
By default, we do not log IP addresses when you log in or when you send an email. The IP addresses of sent and received emails are stripped so that your location remains unknown.
We only log IP addresses of individual accounts in case of serious criminal acts such as murder, child pornography, robbery, bomb threats and blackmail after being served a valid court order by a French judge. You can find details on this as well as on French data protection rights on our blog.
Learn on our blog how Proton-Mail fights illegal mass surveillance by providing an anonymous email service. Upon registration you do not need to provide any personal data (e.g. no phone number required). We will also make it possible to pay for Proton-Mail with Bitcoin.
Yes, all data within Proton-Mail is end-to-end encrypted and only accessible with your password. Scanning and profiling of your data is not possible.
You can show headers of received emails by pressing the shortcut H. Proton-Mail strips headers from emails sent to protect your privacy.
To show all shortcuts in Proton-Mail, please press F1 (Fn & F1).
Proton-Mail does not load pictures automatically when you open an email. When you load external images manually, please note that
Phishing is a name or type of online scam in which criminals try to look like a legitimate sender in order to get your data such as credentials or credit card data. Phishers use very sophisticated psychological techniques and develop very realistic copies of real websites and emails.
If you see a phishing banner, it means that some parts of this email match our phishing signatures after other users reported similar emails as phishing. Please be extremely careful with such messages. Usually phishing emails contain a special link to the website which looks real but it actually is not. If you think that the email is legitimate and you opened the link, please make sure to check the full website URL: Check that you see all of it, sometimes only one part or one character may be swapped.
You can mark an email as not phishing so you will not see the warning message any more for this email.
We never send you emails with links where you need to type in your password. We encourage you to always protect your login credentials with 2FA as this makes it close to impossible for an attacker to log into your account.
If you already fell for a phishing attack, please check this FAQ.
We require all messages to be authenticated. Without authentication, the email could be coming from anyone or could be modified so you should always treat such emails with scrutiny. If you see a message where the authentication has failed (red warning banner), you should be especially careful as it means that this email was likely faked.
Yes, Proton-Mail comes with full-text search of your encrypted mailbox. In the free version, search is limited to four weeks into the past due to heavy server load caused by the encrypted search feature. Learn here how you can improve your search results. The spam folder is excluded from search.
Search is executed locally via an encrypted search index to guarantee security and privacy of your data as well as your search queries. As the search index needs to be stored in your browser, it does not work in private mode/incognito mode. Read here how our innovative full-text search on encrypted data works.
The Settings are in the navigation menu to the left.
The language in Proton-Mail is taken automatically from your browser or system settings. Please change the language there. Alternatively, you can go to 'Settings' -> 'Appearance' to switch the displayed language for Proton-Mail.
In the apps, you can zoom with a double tap. We plan to improve this behavior further.
In case the Proton-Mail app is force closed, iOS does not let the app receive new alarms via silent notifications. To receive calendar event notifications again, please open the app so that it stays in the background.
You need to update your F-Droid repository to see the newest version of the Proton-Mail Android app.
WebView is a system app on Android devices which allows us to display web content inside the Proton-Mail app. Newer versions let us use newer technologies to make the app smaller, faster, more beautiful and more reliable. If you experiencing issues or bugs with the Android app, updating WebView has a good chance to help.
Yes, users have full control over notifications through the app system settings. On your phone go to 'Apps', select 'Proton-Mail' and change the notification for new emails there.
In the mobile app, you can currently only login with one user. To switch to another user, you must log out and log in again. You can login with multiple users in the browser by opening several tabs or windows. In the desktop clients, you can also open several windows to login with multiple users.
Proton-Mail desktop app uses system keychain to be able to encrypt sensitive details such as credentials and alarms. On Linux there must be an app installed which provides secret storage (org.freedesktop.secrets interface). This is usually set up together with the rest of the desktop environment but sometimes it requires manual setup. Installing GNOME Seahorse and configuring keychain there should be sufficient. KeePassXC is another provider which can be used but it must be additionally configured.
Yes, you can add existing email addresses (e.g. Alice2, Alice3) as aliases or users to a paid account (Alice1):
Please note: You are only transferring the email addresses. Emails and contacts stored in the deleted accounts (Alice2, Alice3) are being deleted. Please export important emails before deleting the accounts.
Yes. Before logging in, click on 'More' and 'Switch color theme' to switch to the dark theme. This works in all Proton-Mail clients (web, desktop, apps). Alternatively, you can go to 'Settings' -> 'Appearance' to switch to the dark theme. To add a custom theme, you need to book whitelabel.
Current encryption standards like PGP and S/MIME have several issues that we plan to address with Proton-Mail. These standards do not support forward secrecy and are not resistant to attacks from quantum computers.
In addition, it is important to us that the subject line in emails is also encrypted. That's why we have developed a solution that is also based on recognized algorithms (RSA and AES) and that automatically encrypts the subject, the content and the attachments. In the future, we plan to upgrade these algorithms to quantum-resistant ones that also support forward secrecy. You can find more information on why Proton-Mail does not use PGP here.
We also see the importance that Proton-Mail needs to be interoperable with other encryption solutions. We will develop an API so that Proton-Mail users can communicate with users of other secure services confidentially in the future.
Proton-Mail supports the current version of the following browsers:
The size of emails with attachments sent via Proton-Mail is limited to 25 MB at the moment.
This is not possible as we could not guarantee end-to-end encryption for your data. Instead Proton-Mail offers email desktop clients for Linux, Mac OS and Windows as well as a web client and apps for Android and iOS.
Yes, you can always access the emails sent via Proton-Mail through the link from your latest notification email. Old notification links from the same sender are de-activated for security reasons. Your exchanged password, however, stays unchanged as long as the sender does not change it. If you have saved the password upon accessing your confidential emails in your browser, you do not have to re-enter it.
If you add another user to your account (family member, partner, team member etc.), you get the following benefits:
Here are more details on user management. If you do not need these sharing options, you can also upgrade accounts individually. Please check our pricing calculator for details.
Furthermore, we have recently added a sharing feature for the encrypted calendar which we will extend in the future. Sharing of entire calendars only works with other paid Proton-Mail accounts.
Email aliases are additional email addresses that you can use with the same mailbox without having to switch accounts. Aliases are included in all paid plans of Proton-Mail. If you upgrade to Premium (€1 per month), you can add up to 5 aliases.
Yes, any paid subscription of Proton-Mail comes with custom email domain support. Multiple domain support is also available in Proton-Mail. Please check our pricing page for details.
Please refer to our how-to to learn how to add your own email domains to your Proton-Mail account and how to make sure that your records (MX, SPF, TXT, DKIM, DMARC, CNAME) are set up correctly in your DNS as well as how to activate/deactive catch-all and more.
Yes, Proton-Mail uses a spam filter to keep your mailbox free from spam. We are improving this filter continuously. Should you receive spam emails in your inbox, you can also configure your own spam rules here to deny or allow certain email addresses or domains. If a sender is blocked (rejected) by the spam filter, you can allow the sender for your account.
In paid accounts, only admins can create spam rules that are being applied across all users.
Yes, Proton-Mail supports an unlimited number of inbox rules / filters for paid accounts. Check our how-to to see how to set up inbox rules.
Yes, all emails in Trash or Spam are automatically deleted 30 days after the emails were moved to these folders. You can also manually empty these folders with one click. Please note: Emails deleted from Trash or Spam folders are physically deleted and can't be restored.
Yes, Proton-Mail uses different variables to calculate email limits for individual accounts. This is necessary to protect our free and anonymous email service from spammers who try to abuse Proton-Mail. If spammers were able to abuse Proton-Mail, it would harm all Proton-Mail users - ie Proton-Mail domains could end up on email spam lists, which we have to prevent under all circumstances.
If you receive the following message in your Proton-Mail account "It looks like you exceeded the number of allowed emails. Please try again later.", the anti-spam protection method has stopped your account temporarily from sending new emails. Please wait a day or two to send new emails again.
If you need to send more emails immediately, please upgrade to our affordable Premium version (1 Euro per month) as limits for paying users are much higher. Simply click on 'Premium' in your side menu bar of Proton-Mail.
Please note that Proton-Mail is not meant for sending out mass mailings such as newsletters. Please read our Terms & Conditions for details.
Yes, email addresses are automatically added to your encrypted Proton-Mail address book when sending an email unless you deactivate this feature. You'll find details here.
Emails: You can export/download individual emails or batch-export emails by using multi-select. Email import is not yet possible. We plan to support email import as well as an even easier export function with our new secure desktop clients.
Contacts: You can import and export contacts via Card.
Calendars: You can import and export calendars via .ics. Login with a browser and click on the three-dot button next to the calendar you wish to import data to or you wish to export.
Yes, Proton-Mail supports HTML editing options (embed images, add lists, bold, italics, underline, monospace, add hyperlinks, align the text left, center, right, justified, change text size, remove all formatting).
Yes, with a paid subscription you can set up email notifications to any email address under 'Settings' - 'Email' - 'Notifications'. You will be informed about new emails once until you log in. Only if you have logged in to view this email, Proton-Mail will send another notification to keep notification emails to a minimum.
As a Free user, you can receive push notifications in the browser, the Android & iOS app as well as the desktop clients.
Yes, you can downgrade back to free anytime. Before this, you need to disable all extra bookings. You can keep your main Proton-Mail email address as a free account.
Check here to see how you can upgrade or downgrade and how to add or disable extra bookings (aliases, storage, additional users).
Some accounts are automatically marked for approval upon sign-up to prevent abuse. This often affects IPs from VPN services or Tor as spammers try to bypass our anti-spam protection method by abusing these services. Please read here why the 48-hour wait is necessary to protect your privacy to the maximum with a truly anonymous email service.
During these 48 hours emails cannot be sent or received. Please do not share your new email address before the blocking has been lifted automatically.
Please check whether the sender was blocked by following this instruction.
Sometimes newly created email addresses are put on hold for 48 hours to prevent abuse. It is important that you do not share your email address until this block is lifted automatically. If you do use the email address to register elsewhere or sign up for newsletters before the block is lifted, this service will send you a confirmation email, which will bounce with a temporary error. This might lead to problems registering with this service, even in the future.
Most websites and online services let you register with your chosen Proton-Mail email address just fine. Unfortunately, we have received reports by users that some websites block Proton-Mail email addresses for registrations. Please check these options to resolve this situation.
Proton-Mail uses its own Captcha so that we do not have to depend on using Google Captcha. This enables us to offer an email service without any links to Google.
The Proton-Mail Captcha shows a clock. You need to enter the displayed time with four numerals, including the colon in the middle. If the displayed time is 8.30 for example, you have to enter 08:30 or 20:30 exactly.
To delete your account, go to Settings - Subscription - Delete Account. You need to enter your password upon deletion.
Please note: Deleted Proton-Mail accounts can't be restored. Deleted email addresses are blocked for registration and can't be used again.
We recommend setting up 2FA because of its security benefits. Learn in our online security guide how 2FA helps you to keep your emails safe from hackers.
Registering your second factor
You can connect your second factor with Proton-Mail in Settings -> Login. As admin you can setup second factors for your users in Settings -> User management.
Proton-Mail currently supports the following second factor types:
Second factors can be added by administrators and users, but only admins can remove assigned second factors.
Note: If you lose your second factor, you will no longer be able to login to your account. To prevent this, you can add multiple second factors. Additionally, please note down the recovery code shown to you when adding a second factor.
Authenticating with your second factor
During login you have to authenticate with one of your second factors. Alternatively, you may also accept that session from another logged in client. If your browser does not support the second factor you had registered, you can only accept the session from another client.
How to reset your second factor if you lose it
For resetting your second factor, you will need your personal recovery code and your password. You can view and also update your recovery code in Settings -> Login.
If you have lost your second factor, click on More -> Lost account access on the login page. There you will have to enter your recovery code as well as your password to delete all your second factors.