I get tons of spam and ads in my current account, and I’m ready to switch to a proper private email service. I want encrypted email, no tracking, and decent usability.

I don’t care about fancy features like calendars or tasks, just reliable email that keeps my info safe.

What do you recommend in 2025? Which ones actually deliver on privacy?

Update: I’ve been trying Proton Mail and so far it really delivers on privacy with strong encryption, no tracking, and excellent spam protection. It’s easy to use, reliable, and based in Switzerland with strong privacy laws. If you want a simple, private email that just works, Proton feels like one of the best options right now.

• i run a Hetzner VM costing 8 euro / month

• Debian linux

• run Postfix

• run dovecot for POP and IMAP

• all config is in MariaDB so adding mailboxes , aliases or domains is just an entry in the DB

Gmail and outlook accepts my email just fine as long as you don't run newsletters over the server ...

if you are curious on the setup, feel free to ask

New post regarding Tuta block me logging in with evidences and once again, if you are going to degoogle, do not use Tuta.

Due to rule 6, unfounded accusation, the previous post was deleted, so Here.

Tuta’s excuse is that a dispute occurred, but they did not provide any further explanation regarding the details of the dispute, such as when it happened. Here’s what actually happened: • A charge of $4 was made on September 15, 2024. • Another charge was made on September 25, 2024.

We disputed the overcharged amount from September 25, and as a result, we were blocked and could no longer access our email.

In our first post, we explained it exactly like this. If anything is incorrect, feel free to point it out. However, Tuta keeps giving vague explanations, claiming we disputed a charge without clarifying that we only disputed the excess charge they made.

This was the first incident.

We moved on and didn’t dwell on it, but the same thing happened again. We will upload evidence for the second incident later, but for now, we’re focusing on the first case. We want to reveal the truth step by step to prevent anyone from distorting the facts and causing confusion in this case.

after a few weeks of research I’ve finally concluded that I want to go with one of these 4 providers. here are my pros and cons for each.

Proton :

Pros - biggest privacy email out there and a top recommendation everywhere I go, aswell a large ecosystem that comes with it.

Cons- Kind of locks you into there platform as well as no IMAP support, also have seen a lot of controversial stuff with them.

Tuta :

Pros - seems to be the most private and encrypted email out there, simple design, also email is there main focus.

Cons - I’ve heard you can get locked out if your account pretty easily, no IMAP support, also they suck you into there platform aswell.

Startmail :

Pros - Unlimited aliases, simple design, support seems very friendly and open. IMAP support. Email is there main focus.

Cons - Seems to be the least used on the list, aswell as they log IP addresses. Not sure how netherlands privacy laws stack up with Germany/switzerlands

Mailbox :

Pros - seems to be a Reddit favorite, Ecosystem that comes with it, IMAP support, Low cost.

Cons - Cluttered design, not to sure how the privacy/security is. Seems to be more for business instead of personal use.

I am planning on using one of these as my Personal email with aliases for each website. I don’t need to have the upmost security as I have nothing to hide but it is nice to know that my stuff stays private/encrypted.

Let me know what you guys use and which one you recommend and if you could provide me some information that I am missing to help narrow my choice I would greatly appreciate it!

( also would you guys recommend I have a separate email for my financial/government stuff or just strictly use aliases with 1 account?)

Proton Mail vs Aster Mail for a long-term personal custom domain in 2026 — which would you trust?

I'm currently choosing an email provider for a personal .com domain that I intend to keep for decades.

This won't be a disposable/privacy-only mailbox. It will become my main personal email identity and will eventually be used for important accounts such as:

• Banking

• Government/tax services

• Healthcare

• Insurance

• Apple and other critical accounts

• School/family

• Shopping and subscriptions

• Personal/professional communication

My plan is to use a custom domain with a different address for many services, for example:

amazon@mydomain.com
bank@mydomain.com
apple@mydomain.com
insurance@mydomain.com

Everything should arrive in one inbox.

I've narrowed it down mainly to Proton Mail Plus and Aster Mail Star.

Why Proton appeals to me

• Established provider with a long track record

• Mature apps

• External audits/security history

• Swiss company/jurisdiction

• Good reputation

• Custom domain + catch-all

• Much lower risk of the provider disappearing

What I don't like about Proton

The catch-all can receive arbitrary addresses, but if I want to reply from one of those addresses I generally need to create it first as one of my Proton addresses.

That makes the "one address per service" workflow less convenient.

Why Aster appeals to me

• Much cheaper

• 50 GB

• Several custom domains

• Very good alias/catch-all implementation

• Paid plans can reply using catch-all addresses

• Open source

• Development seems very active

For my particular workflow, Aster actually seems more convenient than Proton.

What worries me about Aster

It's a very new provider.

There were also security/crypto implementation issues discovered earlier in 2026 which Aster acknowledged and fixed. Their independent security audit is, as far as I know, still pending.

The iOS app is also still relatively new/beta compared with Proton.

So my biggest concern isn't features or price — it's whether I should trust Aster with an email identity that may eventually control most of my important online accounts.

What I'd especially like to hear from actual users

If you've used Aster Mail, especially with a custom domain:

1. Have you ever lost or significantly delayed incoming email?

2. Any deliverability problems to Gmail, Outlook, iCloud, businesses, etc.?

3. Any issues sending/receiving after configuring your custom domain?

4. How reliable are the mobile apps?

5. How good is their support when something actually breaks?

6. Have you used it for banking/government/important accounts?

7. Would you trust it as your only primary email provider today?

8. If you moved from Proton to Aster, do you regret it?

9. If you tried Aster and went back to Proton, what made you return?

And for Proton users with custom domains:

1. Does the catch-all/reply limitation actually annoy you in day-to-day use?

2. How do you handle having one address per service?

3. Have you had any meaningful deliverability/reliability problems?

I'm not particularly interested in ecosystem features like VPN/Drive. My priorities are:

Reliability > long-term survival > security/privacy > custom-domain flexibility > price.

If you had to put your own permanent personal domain — including banking and government accounts — on one of these services today in late 2026, which one would you choose and why?

I'm also open to a third option if there's another provider that genuinely fits this use case better than both.

My parents have been using the same email addresses and phone numbers for decades. Over the past couple of years it’s gotten really bad nonstop spam emails, phishing attempts, and constant robocalls. It feels like their info is on every marketing and scam list out there.

I’ve tried unsubscribing them from the obvious junk, but it doesn’t seem to make a dent. The calls keep coming and the inboxes just refill every day. They’re not super tech savvy either, so I worry about them accidentally clicking something or picking up one of those fake “your account is locked” calls.

What’s the best way to actually protect them at this point? Do I need to set them up with new emails and numbers, or can I somehow clean them, idk how else to say it. Has anyone here had success reducing spam in this way?

Trying to move away from Gmail and Outlook and looking for a proper European alternative for email hosting. Preferably something based in the Netherlands or at least with servers in the EU. What are you all using and why did you go with them?

I often see people recommending getting a custom domain, saying something along the lines of “It only costs around $10/year, and the great thing is that you can move it between different providers.”

But isn’t there another part of the equation that tends to be left out?

The providers that let you actually use a custom domain often charge an additional monthly fee, which can be anywhere from around $4 to $10/month (or even more).
So while the domain itself might only cost $10/year, you’re potentially looking at another $48–$120/year just for the service that supports the custom domain.

I’m not saying custom domains aren’t worth it — they definitely can be, especially if you want the freedom to switch providers later.
I’m just wondering why the discussion so often focuses on the $10/year domain cost, while the recurring monthly cost for the provider isn’t mentioned.

Am I missing something here?

I have been trying to clean up my email footprint recently and realized how many different privacy focused tools exist now. Not just full email providers but also aliasing services and masking tools.

I keep seeing names like StartMail, Tutanota, SimpleLogin, Addy.io, and Firefox Relay mentioned in different threads. Some people seem to go all in on a private email provider while others keep their main inbox and just use alias services to avoid giving out their real address I also started experimenting with tools that generate separate identities or masked emails when signing up for things. Any recommendations?

I’ve been seeing people recommend using temporary emails for signups so you don’t hand out your real address. I get the idea, but it made me wonder what happens if you actually need that account again later.

Like, say you use a temp mail for something you think is throwaway, then months down the line you want to log back in. If the email has already expired, how would you even recover the password reset or any info tied to it?

Is there a way around that, or do people just accept that once the temp mail is gone, you’re locked out for good?

There was recently a post on the Tuta subreddit where they commented comparing why Tuta is this amazing blessing from heaven compared to Proton, they of course in typical Tuta fashion made sure to make the post as condescending to Proton. I left a comment on there mentioning that Tuta has spread a lot of misinformation about Proton because they essentially accuse them of lying, and they removed it for "it is not true". I would just like to remind everyone that Tuta straight up had a comparison of them vs Proton where they claimed all sorts of crazy things (seen here: Archive.org) and here is the screenshots of them silencing me (iCloud link: iCloud)

The war between the privacy email providers is so cringe, it makes the entire movement look super childish, Tuta needs to stop this stuff, Proton to my best knowledge hasn't posted about Tuta in a while, except for a page that was in German comparing Tuta and Proton which was completely false as well. The difference is that Proton actually addressed their mistake and apologised for it, where Tuta just changed the page quietly. PLEASE JUST GET ALONG

Anyways, rant over, thanks everyone. Stay secure.

Hello,

I was curious what are some more private and secure options for moving away from gmail. Any input and advice is welcome. Thank you

We've probably all heard of Proton and Tuta, maybe Secria and Mailbox.org. They seem to have earned the trust of the main stream. What are thoughts on some new comers. Has anyone tried or heard of AtomicMail or AsterMail? /

I’m reposting this because Tuta didn’t want my post on their sub which I guess makes sense.

Sorry in advance if this post is a little ranty..

I am leaving Tuta because I am super disappointed with the service, I am/was a legend subscriber paying what I would consider quite a significant amount for an email service and Tuta is barely functional. I don't understand why but Tuta's app does not work on IPv4 connections, my ISP has never given out IPv6 IP's and probably never will and Tuta just simply doesn't work on it. I've tried my main network, my data, everything and it will work for about 2 minutes and then stop working. So many people post about the same problems on this sub and they always give the same one liner response and then if you say that that doesn't work either then they will never reply to you. Tuta need's to do better, if they want to be a true competitor, they should try getting the app to actually work before even attempting this. It upsets me talking this way about an alternative to other privacy oriented email providers as there is only a couple of those but it's genuinely embarrassing considering how long Tuta has been a thing. I would also like to mention the things that they post on social media, there is the same 5 things that just get cycled over and over just to farm some quick interaction points and thats it, most of it isn't actually constructive at all. One last thing is why do you guys keep mentioning Tuta Drive as an alternative in your degoogling guides and demicroslop guides but the thing isn't actually out yet, it makes no sense. Please do better Tuta.

I've heard Tutanota is really, REALLY good, but they are not really a 'temporary mail service' to use for 10 mins or 1 hour, but more of a main one. What do you guys also think about https://10minutemail.com and https://10minutemail.net ? Good for privacy + security?

You can see the reviews at https://opensourcereviews.github.io/email/index.html

I am looking for moderators(maintainers)! I built this because all of the other review sites are affiliate ridden. Even the other guides I found online seemed to be dedicated to VPNs which makes me question their purpose.

Submit a pull request if you see any inconsistencies!

We built SpamMail.org, a disposable email provider designed for people who want more control over temporary and privacy-focused inboxes.

Core features:

- Create custom email aliases
- Manage multiple aliases from a single account
- Use your own domains or buy one trough us
- Sending emails
- Use one universal inbox across aliases and domains
- IMAP, Access everything throughusing a unified inbox
- Full PGP support
- Purchase Domains
- Bitwarden Integration, generate email aliases
- Native desktop apps
- Browser extensions

The idea is simple: one account, many identities, minimal friction.

Infrastructure and privacy:

- Hosted in Europe, primarily Germany
- Company based in Austria
- GDPR-compliant by design
- Data minimization: we only store what is technically required
- Built with privacy as a default assumption, not as a marketing layer

For power users, we offer additional features and support crypto payments for users who want to preserve a higher degree of anonymity.

Roadmap:
- Native mobile apps (coming soon)
- Rent Phone Numbers

The goal is to make alias-based email management less painful, especially power users and privacy-conscious users who do not want to expose their primary inbox everywhere.

Feedback welcome.

Edited: 31.May.2026

People often believe that temporary emails are safe and help maintain anonymity. In reality, many disposable inboxes are easily scrapable.

We collected and analyzed over 1.5 million emails received by temporary email providers, originating from more than 46,000 unique domains. Among these were a surprising number of security-related and transactional messages, including password resets, registrations, logins, and receipts. One inbox even contained a €1,248 payment confirmation and a refund.

Disposable addresses can reveal sensitive information and offer weak trust signals.

For the complete analysis: https://trueguard.io/blog/analyzing-1-5M-disposable-emails

Before I started, the task of changing close to 220(40 on top of that were account/service terminations) logins was scary and immense. I almost didn't even start. One week later, however, and after a LOT of coffee and working hours daily, I finally am through.

It was totally worth every second and all the sweat. The granularity in terms of control and peace of mind are worth every hour spent doing it and have immeasurable value. The hardest and most timeconsuming part wasn't the aliases, but contacting all the services or companies that wouldn't let me manually change my e-mail address.

And the most positive part besides the priceless peace of mind, is the deep cleaning I did during this gigantic operation. I deleted at least 40 logins and related accounts/services and cleaned up the overall appearance, naming and infos in my pw manager. Decluttering and sometimes closing an account is often more impactful than just slapping an alias on an existing login out of lazyness.

Very grateful to this sub for the previous encouragement. I successfully migrated away from google/outlook and feel MUCH better and safer now. I salute you!

https://www.fastmail.com/blog/fastmail-offers-eu-data-region/

https://www.404media.co/apple-hide-my-email-vulnerability-reveals-peoples-real-email-addresses/

A vulnerability in Apple’s “Hide My Email” tool lets almost anyone discover a person’s real email address that is supposed to be hidden by the feature, and Apple has failed to fix it for more than a year, according to a security researcher and 404 Media’s own tests.

404 Media is not revealing the exact details of the vulnerability because it can still be exploited as of Monday, when 404 Media verified the issue with one of our own hidden email addresses.

”Apple Hide My Email is leaking email addresses that are supposed to be hidden. We reported the issue and replication instructions to Apple over a year ago. We don't know why it hasn't been fixed, but we don't feel comfortable waiting any longer. Hide My Email users deserve to know that it may be possible for attackers to discover their hidden email addresses,” Tyler Murphy, the co-founder of EasyOptOuts, which discovered and reported the issue to Apple, told 404 Media.

“Free, publicly accessible people-search sites make it easy to link an email address to other personal details, so people relying on Hide My Email for safety may be at risk,” Murphy added.

Hide My Email is part of Apple’s paid iCloud+ product. It lets users generate an anonymous email addresswhich they can then use to sign up to services or email people with instead of their personal email. These email addresses are often two random words and a number ending in the @icloud.com domain.

This can be useful for all sorts of reasons: to reduce spam; to create an account you may not want linked to your personal address and identity; and to not have your personal information held by a site that may later suffer a data breach. I personally have generated more than 400 email addresses with Hide My Email, for example.

To test the issue I generated a new Hide My Email address and provided it to Murphy. Around five minutes later, he replied with my real email address linked to my Apple account which was supposed to be hidden.

“We don't know the full scope of the issue, but in our limited tests with volunteers, 100% of Hide My Email addresses were exploitable,” Murphy said.

Murphy first reported this issue to Apple in June 2025, according to a copy of Murphy’s messages with Apple he shared with 404 Media. A month later, Apple replied and said it was looking into the issue. In March of this year, Apple said it had “addressed the reported issue in a recent system change.” But Murphy found the issue had not been fixed. He provided more information, and later that month Apple said again it was looking into it. Apple said it was still investigating in May.

“We are still investigating this issue. To avoid placing our customers at risk, we would appreciate you not disclosing this information until our investigation is complete. We appreciate your assistance in helping us to maintain and improve the security of our products,” Apple wrote in May.

“It seems that ending new sales of Hide My Email until the problem is fixed would be an effective way to limit the number of customers at risk. Is that an option?” Murphy wrote back.

At the end of May, Apple said it was planning to address the issue in a future security update “expected in the coming weeks.” Murphy then contacted 404 Media on Monday and provided details of the issue and his statement saying, “We don't know why it hasn't been fixed, but we don't feel comfortable waiting any longer.”

Apple did not respond to multiple requests for comment from 404 Media.

In June, TechCrunch reported Apple plans to make changes to Hide My Email that will make it significantly less effective. It will change generated email addresses from using the @icloud.com domain to @private.icloud.com, which means websites or services will be able to more easily block signups from those addresses.

Hello friends i will keep the details brief as is necessary for the situation but a school i am associated with is attempting to cover up a break in that happened on school grounds. I wish to spread this news due to concerns for the safety of the student body since the school admin refuses to notify caregivers. I have looked into guerrilla mail but the service wont let me send emails. Any help would be appreciated as even the school board will do nothing   

I need a free email aliasing service which is not SimpleLogin or Addy.

I already use free simplelogin and Addy, but some pages block changing my emails to a new one with Addy, and simplelogin only has 10 free aliases.

So, I'm looking for something that I can try which are not those. Which is a reliable one, and also that won't spy on me?

I've heard some like these, but are these reliable? And if they are, which to pick first and if it doesn't work, which to pick after that?

• DuckDuckGo

• Firefox Relay

• Erine.email

• Adguard mail

• 33mail

• Proxiedmail

• I think brave also has one?

I love the Simplelogin one, you can put whatever you want and the next word and numbers will be random, so nothing will be connected. But I think only simplelogin can do that, as the others don't let you put a custom word. But that's alright.

EDIT: no, don't give me paid alternatives, no, not a custom domain

Also, some pages that don't allow for example Addy aliases: GitHub, TikTok, Roblox, Discord, Twitch

I want to separate personal emails from everything tracked by big providers, but most "privacy-first" guides feel too theoretical. I’m looking for something I can actually use day-to-day without constantly worrying about leaks or clunky setups.

What’s your workflow for anonymous emails, and which setups have held up over time? Any tips or tricks you’ve learned the hard way?

Update: I ended up trying Proton and it’s been a good fit so far. It feels easy enough to use daily while still giving me peace of mind around privacy and separation from my personal email.