4 best free secure email providers plus 1 alternative

ProtonMail is based in Switzerland, a location considered much better than invasive jurisdictions such as the US and the UK, but one that has recently become fraught with controversy due to the BÜPF legislation which binds telecommunication companies to store user information.

A knock to its reputation

Unfortunately, Swiss authorities have recently served the firm with warrants to provide data in ongoing criminal cases, and as such, ProtonMail's reputation and user-base have taken a significant knock, losing the trust of activists around the world. Despite this, the service remains a robustly secure provider, and one that's certainly worth considering if you're just looking to add an extra layer of security to your emails. However, it is not one that we would recommend for political activists or dissidents who may see Swiss authorities cooperating with their own government.

You'll need a disposable email for setup

Free users are asked to verify their account, which means that you will need to provide another email address when you create the account. This is not ideal and does mean that to start a free account that isn't tied to you, you will need a burner email address elsewhere. This is pretty easy to obtain and isn't an issue with the right setup.

Open-source and fully audited

Fortunately, ProtonMail is an open-source email solution, and has been independently audited. In addition, it provides full PGP compatibility for sending encrypted emails, and all emails are securely encrypted on its servers while at rest.

This is impressive considering that you can use it for free with one address and 500 MB of storage space. If you want to add robust security to your day-to-day emails, and don't need more than one email address, it's well worth putting to the test!

Mailfence is based in Belgium offers a highly-impressive free service. Free users are permitted to get a single email address with 500 Mb of storage. Add to that the wealth of features available, and the advantages of using this service stack up quickly.

Customisable security

End-to-end encryption is provided thanks to strong PGP compatibility. However, for beginners, the option is there to securely encrypt emails using a "shared secret" password system. This means that anybody can instantly start sending secure emails – without the need to learn about complicated PGP keys.

More than just an email provider

Mailfence has awesome extra features such as a calendar, contacts, and documents storage – helping you to maximize your organization, without the extra cost. It's also easy to sync the service across all your devices – and lets you quickly import your old contacts from your old email address using a CSV file. 

Full transparency for logs

While Mailfence does store some logs about its users – including user IP addresses and metadata – it only does this to comply with Belgian laws. And it does provide a full transparency report that reveals exactly how many requests from the authorities it receives. 

However, no matter what warrants it receives, it can never provide access to the contents of emails thanks to the strong end-to-end encryption it provides.

SecureMyEmail boasts an easy-to-use service that takes the stress out of securing your emails, all without having to change your email or move to a new service! I loved that, unlike other secure email providers like Startmail or Tutanota, SecureMyEmail works alongside popular services such as Yahoo, Outlook and Gmail rather than being a replacement for them, and you don't need to be a tech pro to get set up and make your emails more secure.

There's no charge to sign up for an account

You don't have to hand over any personal details or even payment information to get started. The only thing you need to hand over is the email address you want to secure. Not only that, if the address you want to protect is a Gmail, Yahoo, or Microsoft/Outlook account, then you can keep using SecureMyEmail entirely free.

If the free tier isn't quite enough for you, if your account is on another service like BT, Verizon, Virgin, etc, then you will need to sign up for a paid subscription. You'll also need to sign up for a subscription if you want to protect more than a single email address, with the subscription covering up to eight, which should be more than enough for most folks. A subscription costs $3.99 per month or $29.99 per year and there's even a lifetime option for a one-off payment of $99.99, though we remain unconvinced that these offer real value for money and would suggest you stick with paying monthly/annually instead.

Pretty good privacy encryption

SecureMyEmail uses PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) for its encryption, but it's made it easy to use even for those who are new to this sort of security. PGP has been around for decades and is still used as the basis for many secure messaging systems. Messages sent using PGP encryption are secured from being intercepted or read by anyone but the intended recipient.

To get it set up, you will need to set up a passphrase, which should be different from your account password, to secure the public and private keys that SecureMyEmail creates. Make sure you don't lose this passphrase or you won't be able to access your encrypted messages! You don't even need to use the PGP key that SecureMyEmail creates – if you have your own key already, you can import and use that one instead!

Apps for all platforms

You don't just need to be a desktop computer user either. SecureMyEmail has apps for Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS, ensuring that you can secure your email no matter where you are or what device you're using. There's even an unlimited 30-day free trial for you to try it for yourself. Just remember that if you want to secure more than one address, or you're using anything other than Google, Yahoo or Outlook, you will lose access at the end of that time unless you opt for a subscription.

Tutanota is a superb email service that permits users to have one email address and 1GB of storage for free. It's a great service for secure email beginners that don't want to learn about PGP keys (since PGP encrypted email can have a steep learning curve). Couple that with calendar and contact integration, and you get a robust platform that's brimming with features.

Advanced encryption

With Tutanota, you get the ability to send and receive emails securely without PGP keys. This is done using strong AES encryption with Perfect Forward Secrecy. So what does this mean? With Tutanota you can use a special link system and a password to send end-to-end encrypted emails to anybody: no matter which service they currently use.

Minimal metadata logs

Perhaps the only downsides are that the firm stores some minimal metadata logs about messages sent using the service for 5 days (to keep the service running smoothly) – however, this should not be a concern to 99.9% of users. Couple that with the limitation that free users can only interact with other Tutanota domains and you may want to consider the €1/month upgrade to the premium version.

Greater privacy protection

Fortunately, Tutanota is designed to strip IP addresses from the header of emails, and it can even encrypt metadata. As a result, you get an extremely secure email service that makes it very difficult for anybody to track your emails, and impossible for them to see the contents. Users can even send self-destructing emails!