Proton Mail Reviews 1,694

Original Review: 1/5
Updated to 2/5 – November 2025
I am updating this review following the successful restoration of access to my encrypted email account (used under the proxy domain name, which was secured with 2FA). The account had been locked since a cyber attack in October 16th/18th, 2025.
Resolution and Security (Positive Points):
I can confirm that access has been fully restored via the enabled password reset action.

Proton's security measures worked technically to protect the account during the incident. Customer Support confirmed they had registered suspicious behaviour and temporarily restricted access, assuring me that the account "was safe from any third-parties since we locked it down and nobody was able to access it at all". This security lockout was recognized as an "Account Lockout Risk" related to the inability to locate the necessary 12-word recovery phrase.
Justification for Low Score:
The 2/5 rating primarily reflects the unacceptable delay and lack of urgency in customer support throughout the recovery process:
• Extended Lockout Period: The account holder was locked out of their personal email account from October 19th until mid-November, a period of several weeks.
• Customer Support Delays: I repeatedly expressed that I was "increasingly frustrated by the lack of urgency" and demanded, on November 6th, "Restore my access; you have solid proof the account it mine".

Overall, Proton's lack of responsiveness compounded what had been a difficult situation and caused much frustration and inconvenience. Indeed, I had to lodge a complaint to the Swiss Data Commissioner such was the lack of assistance or urgency from Protonmail's customer support.

I really wanted this to work - I wanted to be more private but after my experience with this company I have gone back to Gmail. I joined, everything worked okay for about a week and then my emails and calendar stopped synching with Gmail. I tried I don't know many times to contact them for help and I kept getting messages back from 'Nikolai' asking the same questions. In the end I gave up - I will just cancel in 12 months as I need an email for Zoom - lesson learned - I wish I had read these reviews. Terrible service, zero customer support - do not go near them.

Update: It's sad to me that Proton have responded to this review asking for my ticket number so they can look into it - why couldn't they have just helped me? Well here's the ticket number 4091349. You can plough through my 10 or so messages to you without any help.

I signed up for Proton Mail because I value privacy and security, but my recent experience with support has been deeply frustrating.

I submitted my first support request on November 5th about a critical issue with my account, and then another ticket afterward. My tickets are #4134556 and #4142072.

Despite waiting patiently, I have yet to receive a meaningful response, and it feels like the time window to resolve my issue may have already passed. It’s disheartening to see such delays from a service I trusted so much.

I understand the team may be under high load, but this experience leaves me anxious and disappointed. I hope Proton Mail can improve their response times so that users like me don’t feel ignored during urgent situations.

These are supposed to be physicists running an email service. It's pathetic. Elementary formatting is lacking. Online outages are common. Smartphone app malfunctions all the time. It gets spammed by lots of institutional servers. Physisicista running? More like amateurs. Do something!

Proton Mail, VPN and Pass are okay. But drive is a failure. Uploading a big folder with subfolders using a browser, there is no way to validate if the upload is correct. If you try to repeat the upload, it only checks if the folders are uploaded but not the files in the folders! You would have to check every subfolder, to make sure, every file is uploaded. Just a mess...

I am already in contact with your support (4111091). So far no solution.
Thank you for your support! Could have found it out myself, sorry.

I have tried to use this pathetic service twice for its private and verification free email sign up.

Both times I wasted time with this rubbish service, it immediately restricts access so I cannot receive verification emails from any provider, which was the entire purpose of using this obscure and cumbersome email provider.

What's the point in forcing people to add their own email or telephone number as recovery, when they want privacy!

I wish i had read the reviews here first. I just signed up with an annual subscription and they have already locked me out of my account. They don't tell you what you have done or any warning. Then they send a long email about how they scan all your emails.
We use algorithms that scan behavior indicators and anonymized usage data to identify and quickly disable abusive and fraudulent accounts automatically. We also use human verification checks when new users set up Proton Accounts, but none of these methods are foolproof. Beware fellas i have never had these kind of issues with an email service. You safer with google then with these blokes. I dont even know what i have done, its got to be a mistake. Just warning everyone they scan all your emails. If you think you have come here to get a bit of privacy you are wrong.

Just an update. it took 3 days for them to reply. They are scammers posing as a legit company.

Your service is a disgrace and a scam. Your website headlines with "Over 100 million people use Proton to stay private and secure online". You suspend and lock me out of my account with no warning or reason. You read all my emails, and now you want documents from me to prove my innocence when no crime has been committed. I signed up for an annual subscription with your service with good intentions, believing the rubbish on your website. Even if you unsuspended my account, I wouldn't use you. Sooner or later your scam will be taken to task, and you will be exposed for the frauds that you are. I wish I had read Trustpilot first.

Please issue me with a refund, or are you going to scam me out of my funds as well?

On 11/8/25 03:01, Proton Mail wrote:
> ##- Please type your reply above this line -##
>
> Hi,
>
> We’re just wondering if you've had a chance to review the latest update from your request
>
> Our Customer Support Agent provided an update some time ago but we haven't heard back from you.
>
> If you'd like to provide an update, or require more time to work through our latest comment, simply reply to this email.
>
> If we don't hear back from you we’ll solve this ticket within the next few days.
>
>
> Ethan (ProtonMail)
>
> Nov 5, 2025, 03:39 GMT+1
> Hello,
>
> Please be advised that your account was disabled by our team as a result of the messaging it was used for.
>
> Would you care to explain the purpose of your account and provide us with details so this case can be reassessed by our team?
>
> If you are operating this account as part of a business, please provide the registration documents of your service.
>
> Looking forward to your reply, please let us know if we can assist you further.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Ethan
> Customer Support
> Proton Anti-Abuse Team

I used google workspace (business) for years before moving to Proton and have never looked back. Great service, great price, privacy and you get features you'll actually use without all the unnecessary bloat. I'm not a new customer, been using Proton for a while now and have never been disappointed. easy 5/5

One of the worst email app available, if it weren’t cause emails are e2ee they wouldn’t have 1/100th of current user base. What a joke of an app, last app updates are riddle with all kind of glitches, check my inbox screen capture, settings that aren’t saved, WTF? you desperately need some help from gmail, best thing happening to you is being bought out by google, you clearly can’t make an app, not even mentioning the other ones

Absolute waste of time. As soon as i started to use my mail account, they blocked me for some reason. No problem I found another that works.

There are aspects of the products that are great, but the way they arrange the pricing model appears to be designed to force you towards the unlimited product because there is so much missing from smaller packages.

Crucially, once you start using their service, you will become virtually locked in to the paid model. E.G. if you start using an additional email address, and later decide to downgrade, you cannot use the 2nd email address at all to receive or send. It wouldn't let me change to a different cheaper plan because I wasn't meeting the lower threshold of that new plan, but did not explain why only providing an error message and reversing the payment. It has been an arduous effort to remove emails, email addresses items on drive, change all accounts that were using protonpass's aliases etc so that I could go from unlimited to just mail plus. I will certainly be changing provider as I found one that offers custom domains for free.

If deciding to use their premium service for mail, my advice is to make sure you have and use a custom domain and DO NOT use the proton email addresses at all. that way if you find their service to be unsatisfactory, it is fairly easy to move the custom domain to another provider.

A company that built its brand on privacy and transparency has now become a symbol of silence and neglect.
2.1 stars is not just a number — it’s a reflection of every unanswered ticket, every ignored user, and every broken promise of “security with care.”

People trusted Proton because they believed in integrity. What they got instead were automated replies, slow support, and a wall of encryption — not for privacy, but to hide from accountability.

Encryption protects data, not reputation.
It’s time to fix the human side of security — before your “privacy brand” becomes an empty slogan. 🔥
👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻

Update – Follow-up after company reply:
Thank you for replying.
Just to clarify — I’m not a Free user. I’m a Proton Mail Plus subscriber, and my support ticket #4106963 has been open since October 28th, still with no resolution.

I appreciate the reminder about “response times,” but numbers mean nothing without action.

I didn’t ask for automation — I asked for accountability.

Encryption builds privacy. Communication builds trust.
Proton used to do both — but lately, only one of them seems to matter.
🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩
✨ Update – After Resolution:

Sometimes, the real strength of a company isn’t measured by how perfect things start, but by how sincerely they make things right.

After my previous review, the Proton team reached out with genuine care and professionalism. They didn’t just respond — they listened, clarified, and acted.

That’s the Proton I believed in — a company that protects privacy and respects people.
I’m proud to change my rating to 5 stars, not because of perfection, but because they proved integrity still matters.

💜 Thank you, Proton Team — you’ve restored both trust and respect.
— Abdullah Alfifi (@ALFAFIABDULLH)

Email helped me testing something, testing is excellent!

google told me its free, downloaded it asked for money not free! W why asked for 3 plans lowest 9.99 a month and for my card W

Don’t use the @pm.me domain in Proton — when your subscription ends and you can’t pay, they simply take your address, and you lose access to every service where you used it. Some users once kept their addresses for receiving mail, but Proton later changed the rules, turning it into pressure: pay or lose everything. They hide behind claims that it “supports free plans,” but in reality, it’s unethical marketing built on fear and user lock-in.

*For Proton’s marketing team who “handle user feedback”:
- You can repeat the same line about “supporting free plans,” but it doesn’t change the fact that taking away users’ addresses after payment stops is coercion, not sustainability. People trusted you because you claimed to respect privacy and freedom — yet you built a system that punishes those who can’t pay. You take users’ email addresses away when they can’t pay, knowing it can lock them out of dozens of services. No other provider does that. It’s not about privacy or data — it’s about control.

That’s not ethics, that’s manipulation disguised as principle.

The customer service is literally a nightmare. I was in a doom loop login for hours trying to get a live chat pop up window, while their chatbot shined me on. Then it dawned on me: there is no customer support that's why there's no pop up window, not chat button that magically appears if you pass through the mystical support portal and are found worthy. Run as fast as you can.

When your inbox become full you get a mail from Protein.com.
You are asked to sort your inbox, throw out unnecessary emails to create space in your inbox again, or buy and upgrade your proton e-mail... since I can't afford an upgrade I emptied my email. This resulted in me no longer receiving emails, I am now only able to send emails but not receive despite having created space in my inbox - FANTASTIC MANIPULATION TO FORCE PEOPLE INTO A PAID EMAIL!!!!!

They don't earn money with you as a product, so to get the full experience you need a subscription, but this is fair. If you get a subscription, the product is awesome.

A process made too complicated...

It takes between 24 and 48 hours for ProtonMail support to think about assisting with a problem, and they will only then send text links unless you agitate, that’s not support.
I tried to set up a paid Protonmail account with my new domain name and despite all the auto messages telling me it was connected and verified, I was told by support, by email, on the only occasion they ever responded before I complained, that it was not connected. Nothing ever worked and they wouldn’t help, be wary of trusting this provider to handle business messaging unless you are tech savvy or have IT support
Ticket No (4089317)

I finally resolved my Proton Mail connectivity issues after receiving more support following my Trustpilot comments. Support is technical and aimed at people who are already tech savvy, so be prepared for a steep learning curve or paying a professional.
It took me a almost a week to get the email to work. Support could be better and instructions redesigned to reflect the growing demand for more casual users or cost-aware small business owners.

Do not download or use, until Proton has improved their product.

Protons VPN and Drive are horrendously slow, beyond usability sometimes.

Passwords, great. Alias feature, awesome.
Authenticator App, tried that too. Also great.

Everything else is borderline unusable.

Say what you will about the privacy of Google, but the products work.

If I have to disconnect from your VPN to receive an email, or message. It's broken. If I download my entire proton drive offline and then have to struggle to open a file, or if I delete one it doesn't sync so it re-appears, then it's broken.

Drive is broken.

Edit: I already contacted you Proton. There are no errors, just a bad product. Search the internet, gather the feedback, improve the product. Don't try and make it seem like my end needs troubleshooting, it doesn't. None of the 5 differently configured devices and networks I tested on before submitting this review need troubleshooting.