Proton Mail Review (2025): The Email Service You Didn’t Know You Needed | WIRED
Jacob RoachGearOct 16, 2025 7:00 AM
Review: Proton Mail
Proton Mail gives you encrypted email, but more importantly, it puts you in the driver’s seat of your inbox.
Photograph: Jacob Roach
Rating:
8/10
Open rating explainer
WIRED
As fast and fluid as Gmail. Several options for encryption. Mass unsubscribe and filtering are simple. Email aliases. Comes as part of Proton Unlimited.
TIRED
Mobile app doesn’t have all the features of the web app. True end-to-end encryption is still clunky.
I never intended to switch away from Gmail. Like most people, I set up a free email ages ago with Google that I’ve carried through countless mailing lists and account sign-ups. My inbox is a mess, my online privacy is completely shot, and untangling my Gmail from my online life seemed impossible. But I went ahead and set up an account with Proton Mail anyway, and I haven’t opened Gmail since.
Proton Mail was founded by Proton Technologies,
a privacy-focused company based in Switzerland, and it makes
WIRED’s favorite VPN, Proton VPN, as well as a
top-rated password manager. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that Proton Mail is equally excellent, though not for the reasons you might suspect.
Like other Proton apps, Proton Mail emphasizes security and privacy, but a big feature for me is that it works for you, not against you. Automatic sorting in Gmail has left my inbox in shambles, and mishandling of my email address has left my contact information in databases I never wanted to be part of. Proton Mail is helping me clean up the mess.
Clean Start
Proton Mail via Jacob Roach
It’s tough switching to a new email service, especially when you have an email address so entrenched in your online life. Proton Mail makes the transition as seamless as possible. After signing up for an account, Proton will ask if you want to import data from Google. I imported my calendar—the encrypted Proton Calendar is included with Proton Mail, even on a free plan—and auto-forwarded my emails.
Mail
Rating: 8/10
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Learn more.From a fresh inbox, messages started trickling in, and I was able to get a handle on them. First, organization. Proton gives you folders and tags, which are limited to three each on the free plan but unlimited otherwise. I tagged emails, told Proton to keep the tags consistent when new emails came from those addresses, and organized a few folders. This is standard fare for any email client, but I appreciate that Proton lets you suppress notifications on folders. I have a folder set up for emails from social platforms, for instance, where notifications are suppressed and the emails are automatically archived.
Organization is one battle, but getting my email off lists I didn’t want to be on is another. Like Gmail, you can unsubscribe from mailing lists easily. In the web client, at the top of any email that Proton has identified, you’ll see an unsubscribe button, allowing you to clean up your email without going through endless unsubscribe portals.
Proton Mail via Jacob Roach
Mail
Rating: 8/10
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Learn more.Further, Proton automatically identifies these mailing lists as “newsletters” and puts them in their own view. There, you can see how many messages they’ve sent, move addresses to different folders, and unsubscribe. Proton also shows the services you’ve already unsubscribed from. After unsubscribing from probably 100 mailing lists, I had at least half a dozen companies still sending me emails. I was able to chase them down and properly get off their lists. (Gmail also recently added
a system for managing subscriptions.)
The difference with Proton over other clients is that these tools are brought to the forefront. I had only five email addresses that it didn’t recognize as mailing lists. The vast majority of emails were categorized properly, and the app itself pushed me to use the tools available.
A Cozy View
Proton Mail via Jacob Roach
The look of Proton is familiar. By default, you have a list-style inbox reminiscent of Gmail, with options for standard or “compact” spacing, the latter of which will squish down each line. You can use the column layout, which moves your inbox to the left of the screen with a view for each message on the right, similar to the default Outlook view. You also get a toolbar on the right that will show your contacts and calendar, and a menu on the left that shows your labels and folders. You’ve used an interface like this before.
Proton Mail via Jacob Roach
Once you start digging around, there are some important differences. When composing an email, you’ll find a handful of buttons at the bottom of the screen. One allows you to set a password, encrypting the email to its destination regardless of the server it travels through. Another lets you set an expiration date for messages, as well as attach your public key; more on that later.
I don’t use AI writing assistants, but Proton allows you to run its writing assistant locally, which is an important distinction compared to nearly every other email service with a similar feature. Most AI features run on remote servers, so when you enter prompts with Google’s AI, for instance, those prompts and the responses are stored on Google’s servers. With Proton, you can keep that all local, no remote server involved. You’ll need a PC that meets certain system requirements, and generating text isn’t as fast as on Proton’s servers. But having the option is huge.
Proton Mail via Jacob Roach
As for reading emails, Proton goes out of its way to make things as straightforward as possible. By default, messages load in full rich text, including images. However, Proton will block images from loading if there are trackers tied to them. It will also, by default, ask for confirmation when you click a link, showing the full URL before it’s loaded. That’s important, especially on mobile devices where you can’t hover over a link to check whether an email is legitimate or a
phishing attempt.
Most of the features available in the web app or on desktop are available in Proton’s mobile app, which, at the time of writing, was very recently overhauled on Android and iOS. You can bind actions to swiping left or right to quickly archive or organize messages, as well as use offline mode, which is a new addition. My only issue with the mobile app is that it doesn’t provide the same tools for unsubscribing from mailing lists. They’re completely absent, so you’ll need to handle all of that through the web or desktop app.
Mail
Rating: 8/10
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Learn more.
Proton Mail via Jacob Roach
You also don’t get some of the more advanced settings available in the web or desktop client. I won’t bore you with the full details, but Proton offers the usual suspects you see at other email services—forward and auto-reply, custom filters, and IMAP/SMTP settings so you can use Proton with an external desktop client like Apple Mail or Thunderbird. The main setting I want to draw attention to is your encryption keys, which you can manage within the settings, as well as export.
The Encryption Misconception
When you land on Proton Mail’s homepage, you’re greeted with this message: “Keep your conversations private with Proton Mail, an encrypted email service based in Switzerland.” It’s a good logline, but it doesn’t fully explain how Proton Mail is different other email services. Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, and just about every other email service encrypt your messages. What makes Proton Mail different?
Your standard online email service uses
Transport Layer Security for encryption. It’s what you call “in-transit” encryption, meaning that the contents of the email are encrypted only while traveling across the internet. Proton Mail uses
end-to-end encryption with public-key cryptography; read our
explainer on passkeys for more details on that. End-to-end encryption means that your message is fully encrypted from the source (you) to the destination (the recipient).
Proton Mail via Jacob Roach
That’s not how most popular email services work. Your emails are encrypted while traveling, but they can be (and often are) decrypted at various pitstops along the way, like the servers of the email provider you’re using. Proton Mail’s end-to-end encryption means your messages stay encrypted, and Proton doesn’t have the means to decrypt them when they travel through its servers.
At least, that’s the idea. The reality of email encryption is messier. Proton uses end-to-end encryption, but only between two Proton Mail users or if you send a message encrypted with a public PGP key. In the more likely event that there’s a non-Proton user in the exchange, Proton uses Transport Layer Security. The difference is that Proton re-encrypts emails before they hit your inbox, and it allows you to send password-protected emails. That will hide the contents of your email from the service of the recipient, behind a password, and Proton lets you set an expiration date for the message so it can’t be cracked later.
Proton Mail via Jacob Roach
This is all important context for Proton, but for my personal email use, encryption isn’t the main draw. Privacy is, and that’s an area where Proton can help, regardless of where your emails are coming from. Just like websites, emails are loaded with trackers that can swipe loads of information, from when you open an email to any links or attachments you interact with. Proton blocks these trackers, and in the top right corner of every email in the web application, you can see what trackers were blocked and where they lead back to. You’d be surprised how many trackers come in one email.
My favorite feature for Proton Mail is aliases. These are technically part of
Proton Pass, but you get 10 email aliases included as part of the Proton Mail Plus subscription. (Proton Unlimited gives you unlimited aliases.) If you have the Proton Pass extension installed, you can create an alias when filling in an email field online, which will forward to your Proton Mail inbox. You’re able to see everyone who has access to that alias, as well as block senders from sending messages to it. (Apple has a similar
feature with its email client.)
Mail
Rating: 8/10
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Learn more.That’s very useful. So useful that I leveraged the alias feature just an hour ago at the time I’m writing this. An email from the Professional Triathletes Organization showed up in my inbox. I’ve never heard of it, much less signed up for a mailing list. It turns out another mailing list I signed up for sold my email at some point, but I used an alias! I was able to block both senders without ever touching an unsubscribe button.
Encryption and privacy measures are great, but the difference with Proton Mail is that it is working for you. You pay a subscription fee. Google and other free email providers don’t work for you. They work for themselves, selling your data and feeding you advertisements to fund a free service, at the cost of privacy.
Addressing the Controversy
Although Proton has a solid track record in its more than a decade of existence, there’s one major scar on its reputation. In 2021, a French climate activist (and Proton Mail user) was arrested, and
Proton assisted in handing over their IP address to the authorities. The headlines wrote themselves, as the no-logs privacy company not only logged the data of a user but also shared that data with authorities. There’s some critical nuance to this story, however.
Proton is based in Switzerland, and as a Swiss company, it isn’t allowed to share data with foreign governments or entities. That includes France and Europol. In this instance, Proton says it received a legally binding order from the Swiss government to log this user’s IP address. As the
Proton Mail threat model page states, “the internet is generally not anonymous, and if you are breaking Swiss law, a law-abiding company such as Proton Mail can be legally compelled to log your IP address.”
Mail
Rating: 8/10
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Learn more.In this case, Proton did log the IP address after an order from the Swiss government, but it didn’t provide any contents of the email address in question because, as the security model suggests, Proton couldn’t decrypt them. Further, a month later,
Proton won a case in Swiss courts to limit required data retention on email providers, and it pointed activists looking for
anonymity toward Tor to access Proton.
It’s not a good look for a company that prides itself on privacy to hand over data to the government, even if that data is ultimately inconsequential. Proton says the authorities already knew the identity of the user, and it speculates that they were looking for further incriminating evidence within emails. However, Proton’s response to this situation is just as important. Contrast this situation with something like
the LastPass data breach a few years ago. Proton acted with transparency.
I’m a believer that perfect is the enemy of good, and that sentiment reigns with Proton Mail. It is leaps and bounds more private to use Proton Mail than a service like Gmail or Outlook, and although the company landed in at least one controversy, it doesn’t have a track record of mishandling user data or lying about it.
Proton Mail makes privacy easy, and that's what I love so much about it. The reality of true end-to-end encryption is clunky, and the implications of a private email service aren't relevant for a lot of users. But Proton Mail gives me at least a bit more control over my inbox, and after decades of siphoning my data out to the highest bidder without my knowledge, it's a breath of fresh air.
