Proton Mail is designed to make encrypted email feel like familiar webmail rather than a specialist security tool. In PCMag's review, the service earns an Editors' Choice rating for combining effective encryption with migration tools and a broader set of privacy products.
Messages between Proton Mail users are end-to-end encrypted automatically. Mail is stored in zero-knowledge encrypted form, which is intended to prevent Proton employees from reading account contents. A user can also send a password-protected message to someone outside Proton, with an optional expiration time, though the password must be shared through another channel.
Leaving an old inbox behind
Proton's Easy Switch tool can import messages, contacts and calendar events from Google, Yahoo, Outlook and other providers. Large transfers can take days because the old provider may throttle exports, but the user can continue working while an import runs.
The service also offers an ongoing Gmail connection. Messages can be read and sent through Proton Mail, which filters tracking images and ads before displaying them. Opening Gmail separately bypasses those protections, so the feature does not change how Google's own interface handles mail.
The free plan includes 500MB of initial storage, with a set of onboarding steps that can increase it. PCMag lists Proton Mail Plus at $3.99 a month when billed annually and Unlimited at $9.99 a month when billed annually. Unlimited includes access to most of Proton's other security tools.
Encryption also has boundaries. Automatic end-to-end protection applies most directly when both correspondents use Proton; communicating with outsiders requires password protection or manual PGP setup for comparable control. For people willing to manage those tradeoffs, PCMag found the interface familiar and the privacy tools unusually broad.