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Free Email Without Advertising
You need an email account — whether it’s for networking, job recruitment, downloading resources, transferring files, setting reminders, meeting with colleagues, or something else.
Even with the rise of office chat platforms, you still depend on email for a surprising number of things. But unfortunately, not every email service is completely free. And even the free ones might not be the easiest to use or have all the features you need.
Create a new, on-brand email signature in just a few clicks. Get started here. (It’s free.)
It can be a challenge to find an email service provider at no cost that balances the right features with usability. To help make your search easier, we put together a list of the different types of email accounts you can set up, followed by the best email service providers you can host your account on right now for free.
Types of Email Accounts
There are two main types of email service providers to choose from: Email clients and Webmail.
Let’s briefly go over these different types of providers.
What are email clients?
Email clients are software applications you install onto your computer to manage the email you send and receive. To access this email, the client interacts with a remote email server.
Email clients you’ve likely heard of include Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, and iCloud Mail.
What is a webmail?
Webmail is a form of email you access exclusively from the internet and therefore exists primarily on the cloud rather than your computer. Instead of an installed application fetching your email, you manage your inbox right from your internet browser.
Examples of webmail providers include Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, and Hotmail.
Now, take a look at six of the best free email service providers (and five of the best email accounts for privacy) you can get your hands on today — both webmail and email clients included. For each email service provider, we’ve highlighted a unique feature to help you find the best fit.
Best Free Email Accounts
Gmail: Best for Offline Accessibility
AOL: Best for Interface Organization
Outlook: Best for Multiple App Integrations
Yahoo! Mail: Best for Lots of Storage
iCloud Mail: Best for IMAP
Mozilla Thunderbird: Best for Managing Multiple Accounts
- Gmail: Best for Offline Accessibility
Best Free Email Accounts: Gmail
Unique Feature: Native File Collaboration
Sign up here.
Type of email: Webmail
Who should use it: Anyone who already uses and loves the rest of Google’s products.
It might seem like an obvious top pick, but Gmail is just too versatile not to get our first slot. According to Litmus Labs, Gmail has the second-highest email provider market share (behind Apple iPhone’s native email app).
Ironically, one of the reasons Gmail has become so popular is because of all the communication options in your inbox that don’t involve email.
Gmail is a regular email inbox tool you can access once you have a Google account. Since it’s built into Google Suite, you can also access a group of free apps that allow you to chat, video conference, and share files with the people in your contact list.
Google Hangouts, available from your inbox’s left sidebar (or the right — you can customize how your inbox is displayed), lets you text and video chat with other Gmail users for the things that might not warrant an email message.
Like most other email accounts today, Gmail also has an intuitive calendar where you can set meetings and reminders.
Pro Tip: You can also use a free product like HubSpot Meetings to easily schedule meetings without back-and-forth emails.
Unlike other email accounts, you can use your Gmail address to log into and manage your YouTube account, as well as collaborate on shared documents and spreadsheets right from a cloud-based Google Drive.
Offering a generous 15 GB of free email storage, Gmail does everything it can to make your inbox less chaotic, including advanced filters that automatically push emails into separate folders as they arrive. And none of these functions costs a dime.
Notable Features:
Allows you to un-send emails
15GB free email storage
Accessible from any internet-connected device
99.9% protection from suspicious/spam emails
Texts suggestions that help you write emails faster
- AOL: Best for Interface Organization
aol best free email account and service providerBest Free Email Accounts: AOL
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Unique Feature: Unlimited Storage
Sign up here.
Type of email: Webmail
Who should use it: Anyone who uses email for most of their communication.
America Online (I feel nostalgic just typing those words) has quietly kept up with today’s standards for a good user experience and is now once again one of the best free email accounts available to you.
Purchased by Verizon in 2015, AOL delivers your email from its classic news-driven homepage and comes with the contemporary spam filters and virus protection you’d expect from your email provider. You can also send text and instant messages from specific windows in your email inbox.
AOL does have something over Gmail, though: unlimited storage. Additionally, you can import email contacts from a CSV, TXT, or LDIF file, so you’re not creating your “buddy list” (get it?) from scratch.
Notable Features:
Unlimited storage
Highly customizable
Offers a spellchecker to reduce errors
- Outlook: Best for Multiple App Integrations
Best Free Email Accounts: Outlook
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Unique Feature: Multiple App Integrations
Sign up here.
Type of email: Email client
Who should use it: Anyone who uses many different platforms to connect with others.
If you ever cringed at the sight of a “Hotmail.com” email address, you can thank Outlook for this outdated domain name.
But there’s good news: Microsoft has reinvented its longstanding email service, and your free Outlook.com email address has many advanced features waiting for you.
While it touts a calendar and message filter similar to Gmail, Outlook also integrates with several other popular communication apps.
For example, you can connect Skype, Facebook, PowerPoint, PayPal, and even task-management software such as Trello — making it very easy to reach and work with non-Outlook users without leaving your inbox.
Outlook offers 15 GB of free storage for each user, along with a super-clean interface.
Notable Features:
Like with Excel or Word, you can use Add-ins with Outlook
Easy access to other Microsoft apps like Skype
Provides aliases that add anonymity to your email
Excellent email organization
Great search feature
- Yahoo! Mail: Best for Lots of Storage
Best Free Email Accounts: Yahoo Mail
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Unique Feature: Media and attachment history
Sign up here.
Type of email: Webmail
Who should use it: Creatives and anyone who sends and receives attachments frequently via email.
Yahoo! Mail, another well-known platform, sits just behind AOL in storage space with a whopping 1 TB (that’s a terabyte) for free, along with a few key social media integrations.
You can have custom background themes and search for key information from your inbox with Yahoo! Mail.
Yahoo! Mail makes it easy to find every photo, video, and document you’ve ever attached or received via email in their tabs on your inbox’s sidebar. This makes the platform especially appealing to those who share documents regularly or simply want an album made of every photo they’ve ever had shared.
Notable Features:
Connects seamlessly with Yahoo Calendar
Outstanding email organization
Customizable themes
Instant notifications for new emails
Decent security to keep your account safe and secure
- iCloud Mail: Best for Data Encryption
Best Free Email Accounts: iCloud Mail
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Unique Feature: Label senders as VIPs
Sign up here.
Type of email: Webmail
Who should use it: people who use Mac and want everything on one system.
If you’re a Mac user, you may want to consider using iCloud Mail as your email provider. Their free email account comes with 5GB of storage that you can use to sync your photos, files, or email.
However, it’s important to note that storage is shared between all of your apps and devices — so if you take a lot of photos on your iPhone, you may eat into your email storage allowance for the month. Upgraded plans start at $0.99/month and go up to $9.99/month.
One of the most significant advantages of using iCloud over other email providers on this list is the ease of integration. Apple builds its desktop and iPhone mail apps with all email clients in mind, but it pays special attention to making the experience delightful for iCloud users.
Notable Features:
Search functionality
Ability to label senders as VIP to automatically filter important messages and save time
One-click “Unsubscribe” feature
5GB free email storage
- Mozilla Thunderbird: Best for Managing Multiple Accounts
Best Free Email Accounts: Mozilla Thunderbird
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Unique Feature: Customization features and the ability to open multiple emails in tabs
Sign up here.
Type of email: Email clients
Who should use it: Anyone looking for a simple but customizable email inbox.
Thunderbird, a free email application from Mozilla, known for Firefox, offers a quick email inbox setup and a simple, easy-to-use user interface.
The app offers customizable features, such as theme settings and app extensions to improve your email experience. The email app also allows you to open multiple emails in tabs, similar to how you would open various web pages in Firefox browsers.
Notable Features:
It has a large extension library
Integrates with Google Calendar to make task and meeting scheduling easier
Smart email organization to reduce cluster
Best Free Email Accounts For Privacy
Zoho Mail
Proton Mail
GMX Mail
Trustifi
Mailfence
- Zoho
Best Free Email Accounts For Privacy: Zoho
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Unique Feature: 25 Business Addresses
Sign up here.
Type of email: Webmail
Who should use it: startups and small businesses.
This is the first of the free email accounts for privacy to make our list, but it holds a ton of potential for businesses.
The first thing you’ll notice about Zoho is its user-friendliness. From integrating with Google Drive, Box, and other cloud-based file managers, to its built-in task manager, this email service offers a simple way to accomplish all of your daily tasks.
The real difference-maker, though, is the ability to customize the domain name for up to 25 connected email addresses. Want to replace “@zoho.com” with the name of your business’s website? You can do so under Zoho Lite, which gives you 5 GB for free — all under username@yourdomainname.com.
Notable Features:
Doesn’t scan your inbox for advertisement purposes
Emails are in an encrypted format
Notifies you if your messages don’t deliver
Integrates easily with the Zoho CRM
- ProtonMail
Best Free Email Accounts For Privacy: ProtonMail
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Unique Feature: Encrypted email
Sign up here.
Type of email: Webmail
Who should use it: Anyone who sends and receives sensitive information.
ProtonMail offers just 500 MB of free space, but for the worthy trade of encrypted email, allowing you to send messages that nobody else can see and disappear after a month.
What’s the catch? Is the service hard to use? ProtonMail is easy to use on any device without any software needed to encrypt your emails, as with most webmail platforms. Its inbox interface is as easy to understand at a glance as the other email services on this list.
And the tool offers quick color-coded labels to help you further organize which emails deserve the most care and protection.
Notable Features:
No personal information is required to open an account
Compatible with other email providers
Optimized inbox to boost productivity
End-to-end data encryption
- GMX Mail
Best Free Email Accounts For Privacy: GMX Mail
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Unique Feature: Alias email addresses
Sign up here.
Type of email: Webmail
Who should use it: Anyone who needs multiple emails with one central inbox.
While you may not have heard of GMX Mail, it’s been around for quite a while (since 1997) — and it has a bunch of features that make it worth considering.
First off, GMX offers 65 GB of storage. That’s a lot of storage for a free email service. In fact, they claim that it allows you to keep nearly half a million messages in your Inbox!
Another feature worth noting is the ability to send large attachments. While many services have low caps for your email attachments, GMX Mail allows you to send files up to 50MB. That’s great if you share a ton of photos, presentations, or other large files from your account.
But the feature of GMX Mail that really sets it apart is the ability to set up to 10 alias email addresses all from within one account. This can be useful in many situations — both personally and professionally.
On a personal note, you could use one alias for all of your online purchases and logins — to keep marketing emails separate from your private messages. From a business perspective, multiple email addresses can help manage role-based emails such as support@yourdomain.com or sales@yourdomain.com.
Notable Features:
Spam filter to protect your inbox from suspicious messages
Easy-to-use inbox management templates
Mail collector for keeping all your emails (even from other service providers) in a single place
- Trustifi
Best Free Email Accounts For Privacy: Triustifi
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Unique Feature: Data loss prevention
Sign up here.
Type of email: Webmail
Who should use it: Anyone who doesn’t want to choose between having a secure and functional inbox.
Trustifi combines the best of a productive and secure email provider in one place.
With available whitelisting and blacklisting options, you can easily choose who you allow to send you messages. Trustifi is also compliant with HIPAA/HITECH, PII, GDPR, FSA, FINRA, LGPD, CCPA, and more, so you don’t have to worry about losing your account overnight.
You can even use the Trustifi add-on to add an extra security layer to your Gmail or Outlook inbox.
Notable Features:
Ransomware and fraud detection
Ability to set expiry dates on sent emails
Seamless integrations with other email systems or service providers
End-to-end email encryption
- Mailfence
Best Free Email Accounts For Privacy: Mailfence
Image Source
Unique Feature: Legal protection
Sign up here.
Type of email: Webmail
Who should use it: Anyone looking for a secure email account that integrates with other tools.
Mailfence is a secure browser-based email service provider based in Belgium. Given the laws in Belgium, all your data is locked away from any third-party access.
Their free plan gives you 500 MB of email space. But to truly enjoy the best of Mailfence, you’ll have to hop on a paid plan that starts at €2.50/month.
You’d be able to create up to 10 aliases on the paid plan and have 5GB of email space, among many other features.
With Mailfence, it’s easy to organize your day and business because you’d be able to easily integrate your email account with your contacts, calendar, and documents.
Notable Features:
Quick integration with a suite of tools
True OpenPGP end-to-end encryption
How to Make an Email
No matter which provider you choose, creating an email is a simple process. But, it’s still important to know best practices so you can have one that fits your needs the best. The purpose of an email is to provide a space for you to have easy, secure communications. Follow the steps below to create an email:
- Choose An Email Provider
Select an email provider based on your needs as a user. Think about which features, such as top-tier security, email scheduling capabilities, or integrations, are the most important to you. Also, consider how much storage you will need and what type of provider works best. - Choose a Username
Select a username based on the purpose of the account. If it is a professional account, then your name with a significant number will do. The name of your business will do if it’s a business account. You might also consider your name@businessname.com for professional accounts. - Create a Password
Email providers generally have minimum requirements for how secure your password must be. These often include a number or a special character. Follow these guidelines and choose a password that is very unique and has a variety of letters, numbers, and characters to make it very secure. - Secure Your Account
Many email providers include ways to add extra security to your account. Take advantage of these features to keep your account and data safe. Setting up two-factor authentication is a great place to start. - Write a Signature
Set up an email signature for your account. This saves a lot of time as you are writing emails and helps keep your closing consistent. Include information like your name, your title, and your contact information.
Making the Most of Your Email
And with that, you have some of the best options for free email accounts this year. But who knows? Your next email address could be entirely different while giving you just what you need to succeed.
best email service for personal use
Aren’t all email services free, you might be wondering? Most are, yes, but paid email services do exist. Even so, that’s not the same as saying all free email services are the same. Far from it. Some are a lot better than others, both in terms of usability as well as the features they offer, and the amount of storage space: email takes up space!
It’s a well-known fact that if you’re not paying for a service then “you are the product being sold”. That’s not always true, but it is the case with some email services.
The cost to provide the service has to be paid for somehow, and two ways are to sell your data and show you adverts. Either that or the storage is very limited, meaning you end up paying for more or choosing a different service.
None of this means you shouldn’t use a free email service of course, as these trade-offs are perfectly acceptable to millions of people who use Gmail, Yahoo and others on a daily basis.
Each service you’ll find here has pros and cons depending on the hardware and software you generally use.
Here, we’ve put together a helpful guide that compares some of the most popular free email options. And because they’re all free, so you can try them all out before deciding which one you prefer.
Best overall email service: Gmail
Best email for Windows users: Outlook
Best email for Apple users: iCloud
Best email for security: Tutanota
Best email for small business: Zoho & Outlook
Best free email services 2021
Gmail
Gmail
Hugely versatile and available on (almost) every device
Regular new features and updates
Sentence autocomplete
Un-send emails
Gmail is easily one of the best free email services. The clean and uncluttered interface is regularly refined, with useful new features added.
These include the ability to recall an email if you accidentally hit the send (or reply-all) button, the option to snooze messages so they return at a later time, scheduled emails for when you’re away, and a Confidential mode that prevents messages being forwarded, copied or downloaded by recipients, while also adding time-limits so that they delete themselves after a specified period.
Most recently Google has added an advanced auto-complete feature which predicts phrases you might type in a sentence, not just words. This can save a lot of time, and it’s surprisingly accurate and therefore useful.
Gmail can automatically filter emails into Primary, Social, Promotions and Forums, and we love this approach, but folders for organising messages aren’t supported in the traditional sense. Instead you attach labels, such as work, personal and family. Clicking a label effectively filters your inbox to show just the messages tagged with it.
Some people don’t like the way Google matches ads with email contents, but it’s top notch (but not perfect) at filtering out spam, and offers useful extras such as links to track deliveries, reminders to chase up emails you haven’t had a reply to, the ability to amend reservations – all without opening the emails in question.
Email from other accounts can be collected and contacts imported, so switching to Gmail is painless. Plus, the integration with Google Drive means you get 15GB of free storage for email (and other Google services).
There’s a 25MB limit on attachments, which is more restrictive than some rivals. To get around this Gmail automatically creates a Google Drive link for files attachments larger than 25MB, which does help.
Bottom Line: Gmail is powerful and easy to use, making it an ideal choice for most people.
Outlook
Outlook (Web)
Clean design
Supports multiple email accounts
Plenty of useful features
Microsoft’s Outlook.com email service is the one that replaced Hotmail a few years back, though hotmail addresses still exist and work.
While it shares the name with the desktop software that’s long been a part of Office, the web and mobile versions are a stripped-back experience in comparison. For some (possibly most) people this is actually a good thing, as the free service still comes with lots of useful features and tools.
There’s the general stuff like the ability to organise email into folders, with the option of setting rules to automate any future arrivals. Multiple email accounts can also be used, meaning you can have your Gmail-addressed messages arrive in Outlook. Plus, there’s a comprehensive junk mail filter in operation and automated messages for when you’re away.
Add to this the Focused inbox (a bit like Gmail’s Priority / Primary) which can be enabled to prioritise messages from people or companies you choose, the Sweep feature which moves or deletes all messages from a sender or all messages older than a certain date.
There’s also tight calendar integration so that invites and travel arrangement emails appear in your schedule, plus temporary email aliases and several other clever tools.
It’s a shame that Outlook won’t automatically offer to upload large files to OneDrive: it just places a combined limit of 20MB on your attachments.
Bottom Line: A well-designed and capable service that works particularly well with Windows.
Yahoo Mail
Yahoo Mail
1TB of storage space
Shortcuts to images, documents, and attachments
Integrated GIFs, emojis, and graphics for emails
Yahoo’s massive amount of free storage is a draw for many people, but the email service itself has quite a few useful features.
The layout itself is pretty standard with navigation on the left and the main pane in the centre, but you can change the latter to either show preview images to the side or below an email. When composing email, you can drag and drop images directly into the message, or make use of the integrated GIFs, emoji, and greeting card-style graphics features.
Search has been enhanced so it returns emails, images, files and contacts, all easily accessible from shortcuts in the navigation column, and if you search for a person, you’ll see your whole conversation history. Event and package delivery reminders will also appear at the top of your inbox making it harder to miss them.
Other email accounts (Gmail, Outlook, etc.) can be added so you can see all your messages in one place, holiday responses are available, and disposable addresses can be created so you can preserve your privacy when needed.
One thing you may not like is the adverts in Yahoo Mail. Some appear like new emails at the top of your inbox, and they often promote Yahoo products such as its identity protection service. They can feel more intrusive than on some other services, but that whopping 1TB (1000GB) of free storage certainly softens the blow if you regularly send and receive attachments. For everyone else, that space is overkill: most people manage just fine with Gmail’s 15GB.
Bottom Line: A solid email service with some creative touches for livening up messages, and one that’s great if you need masses of storage space.
Zoho Mail
Zoho Mail
Streams
Integrate with Zoho’s office suite
Ad-free
Zoho has its focus mainly on teams and small businesses where you collaborate with other users, as you can see from some of its features.
One of the most obvious is Streams, which brings social media-style comments and likes into standard email. By tagging other members of your team, or family and friends, they can respond to the original email without having to send a separate reply. There are several other apps and plug-ins that expand the team-ethos, with Zoho supporting up to 25 linked user accounts.
Of course, there’s the standard multi-layer folders, labels, flags and filters that allow you to organise your email, you can share an entire folder with a colleague, plus a recall email facility. Free accounts get 5GB of storage for a mailbox, with 5GB for documents. The latter links to Zoho’s web-based office software, which are decent hold their own against the likes of Google, Microsoft and Apple’s online suites.
Zoho is ad-free, but this version doesn’t support Google Calendar and limits the size of emails to 25MB. There are paid tiers that beef up the capabilities, but if these few restrictions don’t bother you then Zoho mail is an excellent service with plenty of features, solid security, and a thoughtfully designed interface.
Bottom Line: An excellent choice for teams and small businesses.
iCloud
iCloud Mail
Tightly integrated with iOS
VIP inbox
Mobile apps support multiple accounts
If you have an Apple device, such as an iPhone or iPad, you will have an iCloud account and email is a component of that service. On those mobile devices, the Mail app can be set up to handle all your email, such as Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo!, but if you access it via the iCloud website you only see your iCloud inbox.
Both variants have straightforward, easy-to-understand interfaces that look very nice, although it’s all quite basic and there’s no customisation. iPhone users can define what actions swipes trigger, but that’s about it. There are no custom views that you get with Gmail and Outlook.
Folders can be created for emails to be dragged and dropped into. Rules can also be set up to automatically sort messages into folders too.
The best feature is VIP. You choose your most important contacts and their email lands in the VIP mailbox, which makes it easy to see messages from important people.
iCloud is a simple email service and non-technical people will love the attractive and easy-to-use interface. Advanced users may find it too limiting. Also, bear in mind that emails and attachments count against your free 5GB of iCloud storage – it soon fills up.
Bottom Line: It’s really only for Apple users, and it’s less useful if you have lots of email to deal with across different devices. You can, however, access your iCloud email on Android if you need to.
Tutanota
Tutanota
1GB mail storage
End-to-end encryption
Access passwords allow secure emails with non-Tutanota users
Privacy is becoming an increasingly difficult thing to ensure online. To counter this, there are a number of secure mail services, a few of which offer free accounts. ProtonMail is possibly the most famous, but open-source Tutanota is a strong alternative.
This German company offers 1GB of mail storage for free (double that of ProtonMail), with all emails protected by end-to-end encryption and now searchable within the apps for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android. To avoid the eyes of Google, Android users can download the app on F-Droid rather than the Play store, and push notifications are not sent through Google’s service, yet still arrive instantly.
Tutanota users can exchange fully encrypted messages directly, but thanks to the use of access passwords non-Tutanota users can still share send and receive emails with little impact on your security or convenience. The free tier is basic but perfectly usable, restricting users to one account and limited searches, but there is €12 (approx £10.65/US$14) per month Premium option that offers aliases, mailbox rules, unlimited searches, and custom domains.
Bottom Line: If you just want a secure way to talk with friends or colleagues then Tutanota does the job.
ProtonMail
Proton Mail
End-to-end encryption
Switzerland-based servers
Open source
Another security-focused service is ProtonMail. With its servers based in Switzerland, there’s protection from the nosier governments around the world, and the end-to-end encryption used by Proton should keep any hackers at bay too. (Note that this applies only if you’re sending and receiving from other ProtonMail users, though.)
The layout is a bit dull, if we’re honest, with a palette of grey and white hardly setting the pulses racing, but it’s a solid and safe solution.
The free tier does have quite a few limitations, with your storage space a rather constricted 500MB, only 150 messages allowed each day, and a maximum of three folders into which they can be placed. That being said, it’s still a good option if your email needs are mainly text-based and place privacy ahead of style.
There are higher tiers that expand these horizons, with £3.50 / $4.50 / 4€ per month Plus option adding 5GB of storage, 1000 messages a day, alongside a custom domain, auto-responder, and other features.
Bottom Line: A secure way to exchange messages, but limited features make it too restricting for most people.
GMX Mail
GMX Mail
65GB of free email storage
Supports multiple email accounts
Send attachments twice the size of Gmail’s limit
GMX Mail is popular in Germany. It offers free storage for half a million emails, which works out to be 65GB. And that should be more than enough for most people.
It can be configured to fetch email from other accounts, including Outlook, Gmail, and general POP3 accounts. This means that it is fairly easy to switch from your current email, with support for importing contacts from Facebook, Outlook, CSV files and other sources.
The service has a good interface that can be customised with themes and the positioning of the reading pane. There are adverts, but they aren’t too distracting. Messages can be dragged from the inbox and dropped into folders to manually organise them, and filters can be created that automatically sort incoming mail. Large attachments can be sent (up to 50MB) which is twice that of Gmail.
Bottom Line: GMX Mail is fun, has some good features, and is certainly worth trying out.
Conclusion
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