Ethical alternatives to Gmail

The short answer

The best Gmail alternatives are email providers you pay a little for, or support with a donation. The fee is the whole business model, so there’s no reason to sell advertising around your inbox.

Below are our 5 picks, a table comparing 20 providers on who owns them and what they cost, and a simple way to switch, starting with a step that takes 10 minutes.

Our picks

• Best all-round: Proton Mail. A free plan, end-to-end encryption and apps for every device, from a company whose main shareholder is a nonprofit foundation.
• Best free plan: Infomaniak. 20 GB free, no ads and no AI on the free plan, from a Swiss company that runs on certified renewable electricity. (New)
• Best for renewable energy: Posteo. €1 a month, a named green electricity supplier, and no investors.
• Best for your own domain: Migadu. $19 a year for as many addresses and domains as you like, from a small, self-funded Swiss company. (New)
• Best in the UK: GreenNet. A not-for-profit owned by an educational charity, on renewable power, from £60 a year. (New)

If you only want one name, start with Proton Mail. If you don’t need a free plan, Posteo is what we’d pick for €1 a month.

Gmail alternatives compared

Prices are the cheapest paid plan each provider listed on 13 October 2026. “New” marks providers added in this update. For renewable energy we looked for evidence beyond the provider’s own words, including the Green Web Foundation‘s check of its website and mail servers. Where we write “own claim”, we couldn’t confirm it either way.

Provider	Based in	Owned by	Free plan	Cheapest paid plan	End-to-end encryption	Open source	Renewable energy, verified	Your own domain	Gmail import	No AI by default
Proton Mail	Switzerland	Nonprofit foundation is main owner	Yes, up to 1 GB	$3.99/month, billed yearly	Yes	Partly, apps only	Partly, third-party reports	Yes, paid plans	Yes, all plans	Yes, Scribe is opt-in
Tuta	Germany	Tutao GmbH, independent	Yes, 1 GB	€3/month, billed yearly	Yes, even subject lines	Partly, apps only	Partly, own claim	Yes, paid plans	Partly, top plan, desktop only	Yes, no AI at all
Infomaniak New	Switzerland	Listed; nonprofit foundation holds majority vote	Yes, 20 GB	CHF 19/year	No, not confirmed	Partly, mail apps only	Yes, Green Web confirms	Yes, paid plans	Yes	Partly, Euria on paid plans
Posteo	Germany	Sole owner, no investors or loans	No	€1/month	Partly, PGP or S/MIME	Partly, built on open source	Yes, Green Web confirms	No	Yes	Yes, none found
Migadu New	Switzerland, servers in France	Its founders, self-funded	No	$19/year	No, it says so	Partly, built on open source	Yes, Green Web confirms host	Yes, required	No, guide only	Yes, none found
GreenNet New	UK	An educational charity	No	£60/year	No, claimed but unexplained	No, standard webmail	Yes, Green Web confirms	Yes, £180/year group plan	No, none found	Yes, none found
Mailbox.org	Germany	Heinlein Hosting, no outside investors	No, 30-day trial	€1/month, billed yearly	Partly, optional PGP	Partly, built on open source	Partly, own claim	Yes, from €3/month	Yes, free migration help	Yes, none found
Runbox	Norway	Staff and board own 77.54%	No, 30-day trial	€19.95/year	No, add PGP yourself	Partly, webmail only	Yes, certified hydro guarantee	Yes, all plans	Yes	Yes, none in mailbox
Fastmail	Australia, data in US or EU	Staff bought it back in 2013	No, free trial	$5/month, billed yearly	No, by design	Partly, mail server only	No	Yes, all plans	Yes, built in	Yes, none found
Mailfence	Belgium	ContactOffice Group, private company	Yes, 500 MB mail	€2.50/month, billed yearly	Yes, built-in OpenPGP	Partly, mobile app only	No	Yes, from €3.50/month	Partly, via IMAP	Yes, none found
StartMail	Netherlands	StartMail B.V., shares Startpage’s founders	No, 7-day trial	€4.99/month, billed yearly	Partly, one-click PGP	Partly, webmail is closed	No	Yes, 1 domain	Yes	Yes, none found
Disroot New	Netherlands	Volunteer collective	Yes, 1 GB	Donations	No, none built in	Yes, all of it	No	Yes, donor perk	No, none found	Yes, none found
Mythic Beasts New	UK	Founders and staff, no outside money	No	£1.67/month + VAT	No, none stated	No, not stated	Yes, Green Web confirms	Yes, required	No, none found	Yes, none found
mail.coop New	UK	A co-operative society	No	£24/year	No, not stated	Yes, it says 100%	Partly, own claim	No	No, none found	Yes, none found
Mailo New	France	Its founders	Yes, 1 GB with ads	€1.50/month	Partly, optional PGP	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes, none found
Murena New	EU	Murena, investor-backed	Yes, 1 GB	€1.99/month	No, none found	Yes, says all code public	Yes, Green Web confirms host	No, not for individuals	Yes	Yes, none found
Forward Email New	US	Its founding team	Partly, forwarding only	$3/month	Partly, password-encrypted mailbox	Partly, part source-available	No	Yes, required	No, no one-click tool	Yes, none found
Kolab Now New	Switzerland	Apheleia IT, independent	No, 30-day trial	CHF 5/month	Partly, optional PGP	Yes, all of it	No	Yes	Partly, paid help	Yes, none found
Soverin New	Netherlands	The Sharing Group, since 2025	No	€3.25/month, billed yearly	No	No, not stated	No	Yes, built around it	Yes	Yes, FAQ says no AI
Ethical Mail New	Australia	Not-for-profit association	No	A$24/year	No	No, standard webmail	No, host buys offsets	No	No, forwarding guide only	Yes, none found

Why people leave Gmail

Gmail is free, and Google says 3 billion people use it (January 2026). Here’s what the free part costs in other ways.

An advertising company runs your inbox. Personal Gmail accounts show ads in the Promotions and Social tabs, chosen from your activity while you’re signed in to Google, according to Google’s help page (checked October 2026). Google stopped scanning email content for ad personalisation in 2017, and says it doesn’t use email content to pick ads today.

The Gmail iPhone app’s privacy label lists your name, address and phone number as data linked to you, and lists advertising data under third-party advertising (checked October 2026).

Regulators have fined Google over those ads. In September 2025, France’s data protection regulator fined Google €325 million, partly for showing ads formatted like emails between people’s real emails without their consent. 53 million people in France had seen them.

The wider record. In 2022 Google agreed a $391.5 million settlement with 40 US states over location tracking. In 2025 it settled with Texas for $1.375 billion over location, incognito and biometric data.

That same year a US jury found it liable for over $425 million for collecting app activity from people who had switched that tracking off. These cases cover other Google products, though it’s the same company, and the same Google account you sign in to Gmail with.

Other apps have read Gmail inboxes too. In 2018 the Wall Street Journal reported that outside app developers with access to Gmail accounts could scan millions of inboxes, and that employees at one company had read about 8,000 emails. Google replied with an explanation of how it vets those apps. You can see which apps have access to your account in your Google security settings.

AI now reads your email to work. Gmail’s “smart features”, including Gemini summaries and suggested replies, use the content of your messages. Google says that content isn’t used to train its Gemini models or to target ads. More on this in Email without AI below.

If you’re staying with Gmail for now, that’s fine: the first step below works with Gmail too.

How we choose

We check every provider against the 6 principles in our manifesto: who owns it and how it makes money, what it collects and what it uses, how it treats people, how honest it is, whether it’s open and works with others, and whether it’s likely to still be here in 3 years.

We’re not pure either: this site runs on WordPress, and we use Google Search Console to see how people find us.

A few things rule a provider out: being owned by a company our guides help you leave, making most of its money from surveillance advertising, or a green claim with nothing behind it. How we work has the details. Inclusion is never paid for, and this page has no affiliate links.

The alternatives

Each one is in the same order: what it is and who it suits, who owns it and how private it is, then the trade-off and the price. Prices were checked on 13 October 2026. You’ll find more providers in our email services directory.

Proton Mail

Encrypted email from Switzerland, with calendar, storage and a VPN in the same account. It’s the easiest way to get end-to-end encryption and a free plan without setting anything up.

Proton AG’s main shareholder is the nonprofit Proton Foundation, and it says it has no venture capital investors and is funded by subscribers. Your mailbox is encrypted so Proton can’t read it, and all its apps are open source. Its AI writing assistant, Proton Scribe, stays off until you switch it on.

The trade-off: Swiss law can make Proton hand over what it holds. In 2021 it logged a French activist’s IP address under a Swiss order, and in 2025 it complied with 8,313 Swiss legal orders. That September it also suspended 2 journalists’ accounts after a security alert, and restored them after a public outcry.

It’s free up to 1 GB. Mail Plus costs $3.99 a month, billed yearly.

Infomaniak (new)

A Swiss cloud company whose free email comes with a @ik.me address and 20 GB of space. Pick it if you want a generous free plan that isn’t paid for by ads.

All its staff work in Switzerland, and it runs on certified local renewable electricity, with data-centre heat used to warm homes. It’s a certified B Corp, and its mail apps are open source.

The trade-off: Infomaniak listed on the Swiss stock exchange on 1 October 2026, though the nonprofit Infomaniak Foundation keeps the majority of votes. Paid plans include an AI assistant, Euria, which you can hide (the free plan doesn’t have it). We couldn’t confirm whether stored mail is end-to-end encrypted.

The free plan gives you 20 GB, and my kSuite+ is CHF 19 a year.

Posteo

A small Berlin email provider that has charged €1 a month since 2009. Good for anyone happy to pay for a plain mailbox on the best-evidenced green power here.

Posteo is free of debts, loans and investors: user fees are its only income. Its servers and offices run on hydro and wind power from Green Planet Energy, and the Green Web Foundation confirms it. It asks for no personal data at sign-up, and in 2014 it was the first German telecoms provider to publish a transparency report.

The trade-off: there’s no free plan and no custom domains, and you set up encryption yourself (PGP or S/MIME).

€1 a month for 4 GB, with extra storage at 25 cents per GB.

Migadu (new)

A Swiss email host for people with their own domain, like you@yourname.com. Made for families, small projects and anyone who wants lots of addresses for one flat fee.

It’s small, self-funded and profitable, and says it never shows ads and doesn’t scan your mail. Its servers are in France and pass the Green Web Foundation’s check, though Migadu makes no green claim of its own.

The trade-off: you need your own domain, and mail isn’t encrypted at rest. Migadu says so itself on its pros and cons page, the most honest one we read. The cheapest plan also caps you at 20 sent emails a day, so busy senders will need a bigger one.

$19 a year for 5 GB, with unlimited domains and addresses.

GreenNet (new)

A London internet provider that has hosted email for charities and campaigners since 1985. For UK readers who want their email money to stay in the not-for-profit world.

GreenNet is owned by an educational charity, and its profits go to the charity. Its servers run on renewable electricity, and the Green Web Foundation confirms it. It works with any email app.

The trade-off: it’s paid only, and built for activists and charities more than the general public. It lists end-to-end encryption without saying how it works, so we’d treat it as a standard secure mailbox.

£60 a year, including VAT.

Tuta

Encrypted email from Germany, formerly Tutanota, which encrypts even your subject lines. The one to pick if you want strong privacy and no AI at all.

It’s an independent company in Hanover, its apps are open source, and its servers have run on renewable energy since 2019 (it doesn’t name the supplier). It has said it won’t add cloud AI, and repeated “no AI” in April 2026.

The trade-off: Tuta doesn’t support IMAP, so you can only use its own apps. Importing your old Gmail needs the desktop app and the €8-a-month Legend plan.

Free up to 1 GB. Revolutionary is €3 a month, billed yearly.

Mailbox.org

A Berlin email and office suite (it now calls itself “mailbox”) from a Linux company whose roots go back to 1989. A good fit if you want a cheap European mailbox that works with any email app.

It’s run by Heinlein Hosting, with no outside investors that we found. It says its servers and offices use renewable electricity, but doesn’t name the supplier. There are no ads or trackers, and you can sign up anonymously.

The trade-off: encryption is optional (PGP), and you have to switch it on.

€1 a month for 2 GB, paid yearly. Your own domain needs the €3-a-month plan.

Runbox

A Norwegian email provider running since 2000. Worth a look if you’d like an employee-owned company and your own domain on the cheapest plan.

Runbox is 77.54% owned by its staff and board, and its data centre runs on certified renewable electricity, mostly hydro. It has a written policy on generative AI and no AI in the mailbox.

The trade-off: no built-in end-to-end encryption (you can add PGP yourself), and no free plan.

€19.95 a year for 2 GB, after a 30-day free trial.

Fastmail

An Australian email service running since 1999, with a built-in Gmail importer that brings over your mail, contacts, calendars and filters. The closest thing to Gmail’s convenience, without the ads.

A group of staff bought the company back from Opera in 2013. Its privacy policy says it “does not and has never trained AI on customer data”, and it co-develops the open-source mail server it runs on.

The trade-off: no end-to-end encryption, by design, so Fastmail could technically read stored mail. Your mail sits in the US by default; since August 2026 you can keep the main copy in its EU data region, with backups still in the US.

$5 a month, billed yearly, after a free trial.

Mailfence

A Belgian email suite with OpenPGP encryption built into the browser. Useful if you swap encrypted email with people who use PGP.

It’s run by ContactOffice Group, a private Brussels company, and gives 15% of its top plan’s revenue to EFF and European Digital Rights. Its transparency report says that in the second half of 2025 it identified users under Belgian court orders 9 times out of 21 requests.

The trade-off: only the mobile app is open source, so for the rest you’re trusting their word.

Free with 500 MB of mail. Base is €2.50 a month, billed yearly.

StartMail

Dutch email with unlimited aliases and one-click PGP. Handy if you want lots of throwaway addresses inside a paid mailbox.

StartMail says it’s a separate company from Startpage and that ad-tech firm System1 has no stake in it. It blocks tracking pixels, and its transparency report shows 3 requests in 2025, with no email content shared.

The trade-off: its webmail is closed source, and it shares founders with Startpage, whose parent company is owned by System1.

€4.99 a month, billed yearly, with 1 custom domain included.

Disroot (new)

A volunteer-run collective in Amsterdam offering free email, cloud storage and more, all on free software. For people who want a free account from a nonprofit, and are happy to donate.

It runs on donations, doesn’t use your data for anything except running the service, and publishes annual reports. We found no AI features.

The trade-off: the mailbox is small (1 GB), a person approves each sign-up, and there’s no built-in encryption. It depends on volunteers, so please give if you use it.

Free. Your own domain is a perk for donors.

Also worth a look

Good options for more specific needs. All are in the table above.

• Mythic Beasts (new). A Cambridge hosting company for UK readers with their own domain. Over 90% owned by its founders, the rest by staff, with renewable power verified by the Green Web Foundation. Email-only hosting from £1.67 a month plus VAT; you set it up yourself.
• mail.coop (new). A UK co-operative based in Manchester and run by worker co-ops, with phone support, at £24 a year. Addresses are @mail.coop only. It says it runs on 100% renewable energy, but we couldn’t find evidence for that yet.
• Mailo (new). French email with family and children’s accounts. The free plan (1 GB) shows ads, and ad agencies can set cookies if you consent; Premium from €1.50 a month has none.
• Murena (new). Email from the makers of the /e/OS de-Googled phone, hosted in Europe on renewable power. 1 GB free, 20 GB for €1.99 a month. It’s investor-backed and mostly sells phones.
• Forward Email (new). $3 a month for mailboxes on your own domains, encrypted with your password. It’s a US company with servers in Colorado, its free plan only forwards mail, and its code is public, though part of it is under a source-available licence.
• Kolab Now (new). Swiss email and calendar built entirely on free software, from CHF 5 a month. No free plan and no green claim.
• Soverin (new). Dutch email built around your own domain, about €52 a year with a domain, and its FAQ says no AI filtering. Since September 2025 it’s owned by The Sharing Group, and its co-founder still runs it.
• Ethical Mail (new). A tiny Australian not-for-profit association, at A$24 a year. Its “carbon neutral” label comes from offsets its web host buys, and its terms let a closed address be given to someone else after a year.

For activists: Riseup is a donation-funded collective that has hosted email for social movements since the late 1990s. You need an invite from an existing member, and storage is 1 GB.

Extras: hide your address, or keep your favourite app

Email aliases

An alias service gives you a separate address for every shop, newsletter or sign-up, and forwards the mail to your real inbox. If one starts getting spam, you switch it off. They work with any provider, Gmail included, so they’re an easy first step.

• addy.io. Open source and run by its founder in the UK. Free plan; paid from $1 a month. You can host it yourself if it ever closes.
• SimpleLogin. Open source, owned by Proton since 2022. Free with 10 aliases, or $36 a year for unlimited. Its iPhone app hasn’t been updated since July 2024, so use the website or browser extension there.
• DuckDuckGo Email Protection. Free @duck.com addresses that also strip trackers from incoming mail. DuckDuckGo makes most of its money from search ads based on what you search, and most of those ads run through Microsoft’s ad network.
• Already with Apple or Fastmail? Apple’s Hide My Email comes with paid iCloud+, and Fastmail includes Masked Email.

We’ve left out Firefox Relay. It’s a good tool, but Mozilla is mostly funded by Google: in the US case against Google, Mozilla’s finance chief testified that Google paid about $484.5 million in 2024, around 85% of Mozilla’s revenue.

Email apps that work with any provider

If you like your provider but not its app, or you want one app for several accounts:

• Thunderbird (Windows, Mac, Linux, Android). Free and open source, and paid for by its users: $10.3 million from more than 335,000 donors in 2024. It’s run by a Mozilla subsidiary; Mozilla itself is mostly funded by Google, but Thunderbird’s budget comes from those donations.
• FairEmail (Android). Open source, and sends your data only to your email provider. Extra features are a one-time purchase. One developer builds it.
• Mailspring (Windows, Mac, Linux). Open source, and syncs on your computer. You can skip its account, and we’d leave its paid read receipts and link tracking off, since they track the people you write to.
• Canary Mail (Mac, iPhone, Windows, Android). Keeps your mail on your device by default. It’s closed source and backed by venture capital, and its optional AI features send email text to cloud AI providers, Google among them.
• Apple Mail. Already on your iPhone or Mac, works with every provider above, and Mail Privacy Protection stops senders seeing when you open their emails.

We’ve left out Spark, which keeps your login and recent emails on its servers and sends AI requests to Microsoft and Google among others, and Mailpile, which hasn’t had a release since 2019.

Why some popular options aren’t on this list

• Outlook.com. Microsoft is one of the companies our Microsoft alternatives guide helps you leave. The free version shows ads and shares a cookie or device ID with an advertising network.
• Yahoo Mail. 90% owned by funds managed by Apollo, a private equity firm, since 2021, and paid for by ads, including shopping “deal summaries” shown on top of retailers’ emails.
• GMX. Lots of free storage, but its owner, United Internet, says in its 2025 annual report that free accounts are financed by advertising.
• iCloud Mail. No ads, and fine if you already live in Apple’s world. But iCloud Mail isn’t end-to-end encrypted, even with Advanced Data Protection on, and it ties your address to your Apple account.
• Zoho Mail. Ad-free and independently owned, but built for businesses: the free plan needs your own domain, works only in Zoho’s apps, and mail isn’t end-to-end encrypted.
• HEY. Independent and ad-free, from the makers of Basecamp. But it’s $99 a year, and it won’t import your Gmail or work with other email apps.
• Hushmail. Now built for therapists and clinics. In 2007 it handed decrypted emails to US authorities under a court order.

Email without AI

Some people are leaving Gmail because they don’t want AI reading or writing their mail. Here’s where things stood on 13 October 2026.

• Have said no to AI in writing: Tuta (it won’t add cloud AI) and Soverin (its FAQ promises “no AI filtering”).
• No AI features that we found: Fastmail (which also says it has never trained AI on customer data), Posteo, Mailbox.org, Runbox, Migadu, Mailfence, StartMail, Disroot, GreenNet, Kolab Now and mail.coop.
• AI that waits until you use it: Proton (Scribe is off until you turn it on, and can run on your own device) and Infomaniak (an assistant on paid plans that only runs when you click it, and that you can hide; none on the free plan).
• Gmail: AI is part of the product. Its smart features, Gemini included, are off by default in the European Economic Area, the UK, Switzerland and Japan. Google’s help page doesn’t say what the default is anywhere else, including the US.

In November 2025 a widely shared story said Gmail uses your email to train AI. Google denied it, and Malwarebytes, which published one of the best-known versions, corrected its article 2 days later. What’s documented is this: Gmail’s smart features read your email to work, and Google says that content isn’t used to train Gemini or to target ads.

How to switch off Gmail’s AI if you’re staying for now

1. On a computer, open Gmail, click Settings, then See all settings.
2. On the General tab, untick “Smart features”.
3. Scroll to “Google Workspace smart features”, click Manage Workspace smart feature settings, switch both settings off, and save.

These are separate settings, and switching one off doesn’t change the others. On an iPhone, they’re under Settings, then Data privacy, in the Gmail app.

How to switch from Gmail

The 10-minute first step: next time a site asks for your email, give it an alias instead (see Email aliases). It works with Gmail, and it’s the address you’ll keep when you move.

When you’re ready to move your inbox:

1. Open your new account. Most providers above have a free plan or a free trial of 7 to 30 days.
2. In Gmail, turn on forwarding (Settings, See all settings, Forwarding and POP/IMAP), so new mail reaches your new inbox while you move.
3. Bring your old mail. Proton, Fastmail, StartMail, Posteo, Runbox, Mailbox.org, Infomaniak, Mailo, Murena and Soverin have import tools or a migration service. For the others, Google Takeout exports your mail as a file, or Thunderbird can copy it across.
4. Move your 5 most important logins first: your bank, government services, work, health, and your password manager. Change the rest as they come up.
5. Keep Gmail open for 6 to 12 months, with a vacation responder giving your new address.
6. Think about your own domain. With an address like you@yourname.com, you can change provider later without changing your address. Runbox, Fastmail, StartMail and Migadu include it on their cheapest plan; Proton and Tuta on paid plans; Mailbox.org from €3 a month.

Questions people ask

What’s the most ethical email provider?

It depends on what matters most to you. On ownership and green power, GreenNet and Posteo come out best; on encryption, Proton and Tuta. Ethical Consumer’s ratings (February 2025) also put GreenNet first, followed by Posteo and Runbox.

Are there free ethical email providers?

Yes. Infomaniak (20 GB), Proton (up to 1 GB), Tuta (1 GB), Mailfence (500 MB) and Disroot (1 GB, donation-funded) have free plans without ads. Free plans are smaller, and someone still pays for the servers, so it’s fair to upgrade or donate if you stay. See the table.

Is there email that doesn’t use AI?

Yes. Tuta has said publicly it won’t add cloud AI, and we found no AI features in Posteo, Mailbox.org, Runbox, Migadu or Disroot. Email without AI has the full list, and how to switch off Gmail’s.

Which email providers run on renewable energy?

Posteo, GreenNet, Infomaniak and Mythic Beasts name their suppliers or certificates, and the Green Web Foundation confirms them. Runbox names a certified hydro guarantee. Tuta and Mailbox.org say they use renewable power but don’t name a supplier.

What are the best ethical email providers in the UK?

GreenNet (London, owned by a charity, £60 a year), mail.coop (a Manchester co-operative, £24 a year) and Mythic Beasts (Cambridge, for your own domain). Proton, Posteo and the rest work just as well from the UK.

Is there a safer email than Gmail?

For privacy, yes. Proton and Tuta encrypt your mailbox so they can’t read it themselves, and none of our picks is paid for by advertising. Whichever you choose, turn on two-step verification.

Know an alternative we’ve missed?

Suggest it here. We check every suggestion with the same 6 principles. To hear when we re-check this guide, join our newsletter.

Sources

Every page below was checked on 13 October 2026. Provider prices and plans come from each provider’s own pricing page, linked in its entry above.

1. Google, “Gmail is entering the Gemini era”, 8 January 2026.
2. Google Gmail Help, “Ads in Gmail”, checked 13 October 2026.
3. Google, G Suite and consumer Gmail announcement, 23 June 2017.
4. CNIL, Google fined €325 million, 3 September 2025.
5. Michigan Attorney General, 40-state Google location settlement, 14 November 2022.
6. Texas Attorney General, $1.375 billion Google settlement finalised, 31 October 2025.
7. Courthouse News, jury verdict over app data collection, 3 September 2025.
8. Wall Street Journal, “Tech’s ‘Dirty Secret’”, 2 July 2018.
9. Google, “Ensuring your security and privacy within Gmail”, 3 July 2018.
10. Apple App Store, Gmail app privacy label, checked 13 October 2026.
11. Google Gmail Help, smart features settings, checked 13 October 2026.
12. Gmail on X, statement on Gemini training, 21 November 2025.
13. Malwarebytes, corrected article on Gmail smart features, 22 November 2025.
14. Proton transparency report, 2025 figures, checked 13 October 2026.
15. TechCrunch, ProtonMail logged IP address of French activist, 6 September 2021.
16. The Intercept, Proton Mail suspended journalists’ accounts, 12 September 2025.
17. Mailfence transparency report, data to December 2025.
18. StartMail, how StartMail and Startpage are connected, and System1 annual report, list of subsidiaries, filed March 2026.
19. Green Web Foundation, green web check, run for every provider’s website and mail server on 13 October 2026.
20. Ethical Consumer, ethical email providers, updated 12 February 2025.
21. US Department of Justice, plaintiffs’ proposed findings in US v. Google (Mozilla payments), 29 May 2025.
22. Thunderbird, State of the Bird 2024-25, October 2025.
23. United Internet annual report 2025, business model.
24. Apple, iCloud data security overview, checked 13 October 2026.
25. Wired, Hushmail hands over email to US authorities, 7 November 2007.

What changed

• 13 October 2026: re-checked every provider against our manifesto. Added Infomaniak, Migadu, GreenNet, Disroot, Mythic Beasts, mail.coop, Mailo, Murena, Forward Email, Kolab Now, Soverin and Ethical Mail, and a note on Riseup. Removed Lavabit (not accepting new users since at least March 2025) and Burner Mail (we now suggest open-source alias services instead). Moved Canary Mail to the email apps section. ProtonMail is now Proton Mail, Tutanota is now Tuta, and Mailbox.org now calls itself mailbox. Added the comparison table and the Email without AI section, and dropped the old section on app compatibility.
• 3 April 2023: previous update.

Featured image by Mathyas Kurmann on Unsplash.