Prøton protects your data from corporations, governments, and anyone else — except the ones with a valid Swiss legal order. Which, it turns out, is more people than you'd think.
* End-to-end encryption applies to Proton-to-Proton messages only. Emails to Gmail, Outlook, etc. are not E2E encrypted by default.
* "Zero-access encryption" means we cannot read email content. Metadata (who, when, how often) is a different story.
* Switzerland has Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties with 50+ countries including the EU and United States.
A French climate activist used ProtonMail believing it would protect their identity. Swiss authorities, acting on a Europol request, issued a legal order requiring Proton to collect the IP address and device fingerprint of the account. Proton complied. The activist was identified and arrested.
Proton was technically transparent: their privacy policy always stated that they could be compelled under Swiss law. The activist hadn't read it carefully, or had assumed "encrypted email" meant "anonymous email." These are meaningfully different things.
"End-to-end encrypted email" sounds absolute. It is not. Here is precisely what is and isn't protected, stated plainly without a marketing department reviewing it first.
| Scenario / Data Type | Protected? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Proton → Proton email body | E2E Encrypted ✓ | Only Proton users can benefit from true end-to-end encryption. Content is unreadable to Proton. |
| Proton → Gmail / Outlook email | NOT E2E Encrypted | Encrypted in transit (TLS), but Google/Microsoft receive plaintext on their end. Zero Knowledge ends at the border. |
| Email metadata (to, from, timestamps) | Partially visible | Proton can see who you email, when, and how frequently. Required for routing. Subject lines may be stored unencrypted depending on settings. |
| IP address at login | Not protected | Proton can log your IP address if legally compelled. Default: not logged. Under a Swiss court order: logged. See 2021 incident above. |
| Proton Drive files | E2E Encrypted ✓ | Files are encrypted client-side. Proton cannot access content. File metadata (names, sizes, timestamps) is a different question. |
| Proton Calendar events | E2E Encrypted ✓ | Event content is encrypted. Titles/descriptions protected. Calendar invite interoperability with external services may reduce protections. |
| Proton VPN traffic | Encrypted transit only | VPN encrypts connection to Proton servers. Proton can see traffic metadata. Does not make you anonymous. See VPN section below. |
| Account recovery info | Depends on method | Recovery email or phone provided for account recovery is stored and linked to your identity. Consider carefully. |
ProtonMail launched in 2014. It is now Proton: a vertically integrated privacy suite spanning email, calendar, file storage, VPN, password manager, and a cryptocurrency wallet. We are becoming the thing we warned you about, but with better branding.
The original product. E2E encrypted between Proton users. Genuinely good. The one thing we do really well. Somewhat undermined by the fact that most of the world uses Gmail.
* Free tier: 1GB storage. Good luck with that in 2025.
* Bridge app required for desktop email clients (paid feature).
Encrypted calendar. Great in theory. Can't easily share events with people not on Proton. Your friends are on Google Calendar. You will use this alone, feeling righteous.
* Invite links to non-Proton users come with caveats. Interoperability is the eternal problem.
Encrypted cloud storage. Client-side encryption before upload. Genuinely private. Also genuinely slower than Google Drive. No collaborative editing. Good for documents you never share.
* Free: 1GB. Paid: up to 500GB. No live collaboration features. Dropbox with a manifesto.
A VPN that actually doesn't log. But a VPN is not anonymity — it's trust displacement. You now trust Proton instead of your ISP. Read the VPN section below before assuming this makes you invisible.
* Free tier exists with limited servers. Full VPN access requires paid plan. Speeds vary significantly by tier.
A password manager to complete the suite. Encrypted, open-source, audited. Also: your fifth subscription service from us. We are building privacy lock-in, which is a sentence we'd like you not to think about.
* Advanced features like pass aliases require Proton Unlimited. Adding features that used to be standalone products to the bundle is normal.
We added a Bitcoin wallet. In the privacy email suite. Because the privacy-conscious market overlaps heavily with the crypto market and we identified a revenue opportunity. We've committed to the bit fully.
* Bitcoin only. Non-custodial. Integrated with Proton Mail for BTC address discovery. A company decision nobody asked about.
We have been careful in our marketing. Our users have been less careful in their understanding.
"With Proton VPN I'm anonymous online." My IP is hidden. No one knows it's me. I can do anything privately. The Swiss protect me. I have activated privacy.
Your IP is hidden from websites you visit. Proton sees your real IP, your connection times, and traffic volume. You've moved trust from your ISP to Proton. Browser fingerprinting, cookies, and logged-in accounts still identify you perfectly.
"No logs means no evidence." Proton VPN has a verified no-logs policy. There is literally nothing they can hand over. I'm untouchable.
Proton VPN is genuinely no-logs verified. But: connection metadata (timestamps, data volume) may be observable. Proton Mail accounts, if used with VPN, can still be linked. A VPN complements but doesn't replace OPSEC.
Switzerland is not in the EU and is not subject to GDPR. Swiss privacy law (nFADP) is genuinely strong. Proton is genuinely not subject to US National Security Letters or FISA court orders. This is real and matters.
Switzerland is also a functioning nation-state with a legal system that cooperates with international law enforcement. Switzerland has Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties with the EU, the US, and over 50 countries. If a Swiss court issues a legal order, Proton must comply — as they did in 2021. "Swiss-based" is a meaningful advantage. It is not a legal force field.
The distance between "meaningfully more private than a US company" and "immune from all legal process" is where most Proton marketing lives. These are different places.
We will tell you this approximately once per sentence in every press release. Andy Yen, Jason Stockman, and Wei Sun met at CERN. This is true and impressive.
CERN is a particle physics research institute. Email encryption is a software problem. These fields are unrelated, but "founded by CERN scientists" successfully implies a level of rigour, legitimacy, and complexity that "founded by ex-Google engineers" simply doesn't achieve. Brilliant positioning.
The Higgs boson was discovered at CERN. Proton Mail was also created by people at CERN. These two facts are not related but we appreciate how the sentence lands.
"I feel completely private. I have no idea what metadata is." — The Average Proton User, confidently
The free tier is real and genuinely usable. It is also 1GB of storage in the year 2025, which will last you approximately six months of medium email volume. The upgrade button is always visible.
* Sufficient for light use or trying the product. The storage limit will motivate an upgrade.
* ~€120/yr to feel private. Slightly more than a Google One subscription, which is funny if you think about it.
* A meaningful trade-off for compliance-sensitive orgs. A hard sell for most SMBs already on Google Workspace.