Privacy focused email recommendation

A provider having more than 50 users and offering more than one service doesn't make them evil. Use Proton. They are the best, and they're not likely to disappear. If you intentionally seek out small services because you think being an underdog is some sort of privacy merit badge, you'll get "absolutely fucked" over and over again.

Also, you should consider paying for the products you use to encourage sane and user-friendly business models. But that's a different discussion altogether.

It’s not about “using an underdog”, I just like “do one thing and do it well” philosophy you know. I don’t need drives, calendars, vpn, password manager, in one thing. I want a simple email provider that’s it.
Yeah skiff wasn’t like that but it seemed not too push it as much, just “hey it’s there you can use it” not full on products. Maybe I’m just being stupid about it idk
- You can simply ignore all of these other features. Proton offers an email-only plan.
Proton = No SMTP/IMAP support.
- You can use Proton Mail Bridge to set up SMTP/IMAP with your email app of choice. Obviously, you’re still stuck with using the bridge app on your device in order to get it working.
proton requires them to use their software and adds a footer with protonmail ads to all of your emails without an option to disable it without paying up
- I think you need to read up on the reasons why services like GMail and Facebook are free.
- Ads are harmless. The harmful things is JavaScript.
  requires them to use their software
  And their software doesn't even have an option to display HTML messages as it is plain text messages.

Another vote here for Fastmail. I also like Posteo, Mailbox and mxroute, but these are not as fully featured - which may be perfect for you if you're after email only. What I really like about Fastmail is that on top of being a customer-focused business (rather than a customer is the product business), they offer a really snappy web interface with excellent search - and they are extremely compliant with email standards, building everything on JMAP.

I do not like Proton or Tutanota. I have used both, including using Proton as my main email account for the past two years. I do believe they are probably the best when it comes to encryption and privacy standards, but for me it's at far too much cost. Encrypted email is almost pointless - the moment you email someone who isn't using a Proton (or PGP encryption), then the encryption is lost. Or even if they just forward an email to someone outside your chain. I would argue that if you need to send a message to someone with enough sensitivity to require this level of encryption, email is the wrong choice of protocol.

For all that Proton offer, it results in broken email standard compliance, awful search capability and reliance on bridge software or being limited to their WebUI and apps. And it's a shame, because I really like the company and their mission.

Don't even need proton for that, just use delta chat.

I'm happy with fastmail. Remember that must people you email are probably on Google (Gmail) so there is only so much you can accomplish in terms of email privacy whatever you do.

Check out Posteo. It's affordable and focuses on privacy.

I've been using Posteo for years. I can recommend.

What's your objection to Proton? You don't have to use any of the other products, and the free tier is perfectly usable last I checked (granted many years ago). Not sure what your concern is

Edit: downvoting without replying doesn't tell us what the concern is. Y'all weird

Posteo, mailbox.org, Tuta.

https://posteo.de/en
https://mailbox.org/en/ (can have your own custom domain)
https://tuta.com/ (can have your own custom domain but like Proton you cannot use K9-mail app and similar)

Let me recommend Migadu, as email privacy is kind of a difficult topic. They offer complete email freedom for a very reasonable price; $20 ($10 for students) a year. They explain my main reasoning why I would avoid Proton:

When an email provider rations email address of your own domain name-space at a fee, they are asking you to hand them over control of your name-space. There is zero cost associated with additional email addresses and it is time you learn about it.

When email provider does not offer you standard email protocols that work with standard email clients, they want to lock you in for good. You are tied to using the dedicated applications offered by provider. The freedom of using a better or more suitable application is taken away from you. Protocols were standardized for a reason and today there are hundreds of email clients built for users with different needs.

When email provider alters messages data in non-standard format, they deny you data portability and with it freedom of changing providers.

Email is a collective effort of messaging interoperability. It is built around open, public standards and runs mostly on open source software maintained by folks believing in an open Internet, privacy and personal freedoms. Let’s not give away our freedoms for some Kool-Aid.

Yeah, there's a distinct lack of nonsense with Migadu.

I 💜 Protonmail. I generally like proton as a company.This video has really gained my trust for them as a privacy focussed services provider.

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
This video
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

I second disroot

Tuta, I've had an account with them for years. Since the end of 2023 Proton Mail dropped off my list because of its funding for Bellingcat.

https://propagandainfocus.com/proton-mail-imperialist-stooge/

Proton, known for its privacy-centric email service Proton Mail, announced at the end of 2023 that it would help raise money for controversial group Bellingcat, a documented proxy British intelligence operation, through its annual Lifetime Account Charity Fundraiser.

Damn wtf

Plus one for Proton, I don't use their password manager, but their other products I've been using and been pleased with. I consider it well worth the cost.

I recently switched to skiff from proton as the skiff's free tier is offering what proton's mail plus plan. And now they are shutting down their services.

Their free tier storage offering was amazing. I honestly couldn't see how they could offer so much for free. I was very tempted at the time but chose proton. Although I think I may move to Fastmail when my renewal is due.
- I honestly couldn’t see how they could offer so much for free
  We just saw that it wasn't profitable and the business plan was to find an exit strategy via acquisition

Been using Tuta for a few years and its great. Can use catch-all with my own Domain

Linux, dovecot, postfix and a large quantity of pain medication.

I found http://mxroute.com/ they offer sane prices for unlimited emails and domains. I'm in the middle of switching to them.

Proton, Tuta, or mailbox.org are good choices.

In my humble opinion, unless you use your account only to receive emails but also to send them, your provider has limited effect on your privacy. That's why I personally don't have a use for Tuta, Proton and other similar, super private services (mind you, I'm not saying they aren't good). That said, I've been a happy customer of mailbox.org for quite a few years and I found them reliable and cheap (if you don't need a custom domain). Same for Posteo, I guess. At the moment, I'm a paying customer for Zoho email, with quite a few custom domains abd I'm fairly happy. They have a free tier as well and their privacy policy looks good to me.

My 2 ¢: Email is inherently not private. With tls you have encryption in transit, but as soon as the data hits the server no metadata is ever encrypted. With pgp you can encrypt the message content, sure, but not with many of the advanced features we expect from e.g. Signal and matrix. Therefore it doesn't really matter if you use proton ot tuta, unless you exclusively mail other proton/tuta users.

I am extremely happy with purelymail.com. extremely cheap and versatile. I also use mailfence.com but that's only because i'd like to have two different servers for something as important as mail. Been a customer with purely for probably 3+ years . Mailfence probably 6+ years. Have seen two small outages with mailfence. None with purely.

I'm curious what's the advanced feature?
- I am no expert, so this is just my understanding: pgp encrypts the message, with the the recipients public key. Once the private key is compromised , bruforced or cracked, all messages are compromised. With signal, and all the other apps that uses signal protocol, it's different. Here, the key is renewed often (i think for each message) and the key is device dependant. Therefore if the key is compromised no previous messages are compromised and neither are communications with other people. This is what e2e means, and pgp is not that. Also the key or self is harder to crack I think, but i am not sure how strong signals elliptic curve crypto is finished to a 4096 rsa key.
  Tldr: pgp is a simple encryption at rest, that can be cracked once and for all. Signal et. All is e2e encrypted and much harder to compromise one and for all.

I know you are not interested in proton but they are the absolute best and you possibly cannot get anything better than their services on the privacy and security end (which they are focused on).

+1 for proton!
I've been using it for years, they've never let me down!
- Me too
Proton = No SMTP/IMAP support.
- How would they be privacy-centric if they supported SMTP and IMAP?

If you don't need anonymity you could just buy a domain with a single email and use your own email app SMTP. I think it's cheaper than most email providers.

Have been happy with Tuta

I was pretty happy with tuta, but I just switched to proton for the IMAP/SMTP support.

There isn't. Self hosting is the only way you can send email without giving your data. All email provider have your data, assuming there is a provider that is private is lying yourself. Even if they have some kilograms of privacy policy.

Regardless of who you choose. Use an aliasing service. It makes moving to a new provider/email address a breeze on the future. It took me days to go around updating all my 200 sites online. If I ever move from proton it will take me 5 minutes to ensure all my sites now go to my new provider.

My only tip would be to create a new domain rather than using a shared one. This will prevent some sites from blocking you from using an alias.

Email alias indeed helps to avoid spam and helps you to assume separate identity per site, but won't help in any way to stop mail provider/server from processing your email data for user profiling / targeted ad purpose.
Buying email domain and self-hosting is only the full proof way from privacy POV, but it is really difficult target to accomplish. A privacy respecting email hosting + alias should be next ideal choice, IMO.
- Check out YUNOhost. It's an open source operating system for servers which comes with email already set up. You can install it on a cheap VPS or home server and easily manage it graphically via web portal.
- Self hosting is best if you have the knowhow, inclination and time to maintain it, but there are alias services that will encrypt any mail they forward using a key you provided so this would eliminate the ability of your chosen non-self-hosted email provider/server to easily read your received mail limiting their ability to profile or target to any metadata and header info that is passed along unencrypted.
  Of course, then you are placing trust in the alias service's privacy and logging policies. But some are open source and you could host an alias forwarding service yourself if you wished as well.