If you spend hours managing personal and work emails and are bothered about privacy, Gmail isn’t the only email service you can count on. Here are some of the best Gmail alternatives that are secure and offer better features.
| Top Software Reviews | Rating | |
|---|---|---|
| 1.Proton Mail | ||
| 2.Outlook | ||
| 3.Zoho Mail | ||
| 4.Yahoo Mail | ||
| 5.Tuta Mail (Tutanota) | ||
| 6.Mailfence | ||
| 7.StartMail | ||
| 8.Spike | ||
| 9.Fastmail | ||
| 10.AOL Mail | ||
Whether on a personal front or an organizational front, emailing holds a significant spot when it comes to communicating. And, Gmail is often hailed as a top choice when it comes to using an email service. However, due to various factors such as privacy concerns, improved features, a user-friendly interface, many users are seeking alternatives to Gmail.
If you are someone who is on the lookout for email services that are better than Gmail, you have come to just the right spot. We have narrowed down some of the best Gmail alternatives that are rich in features, have intuitive interfaces and at the same time help up your security game.
Why Look For Alternatives To Gmail?
Sure Gmail brings along great features. However, it is always better to have alternatives in hand. As for Gmail, here are a few reasons why you might consider trying Gmail alternatives –
- Google data harvesting issues where it has reportedly scanned users’ emails for personal information for targeted ads.
- The desire for more customization.
- Better storage options.
- Better cross-integration with specific platforms and tools and less dependency on the Google ecosystem.
- For better security features. In the recent past, hackers have been able to bypass Google’s Two-factor Authentication and have been able to hack users’ accounts.
Best Alternative Email To Gmail
1. Proton Mail
Price – Free trial available. Pricing starts at $9.99/ month
Personal Experience With Proton Mail
We were able to enjoy most of the services that are offered by its counterpart Gmail. What we particularly liked is how it lets you protect your inbox using biometric authentication. It further offers zero-access encryption which reduces the risk of your data being leaked.
About
Proton Mail is one of the best-encrypted email alternatives to Gmail. It is based in Geneva, Switzerland. The country is known for its strong privacy laws. Proton Mail bars the entry of any third parties, blocks all trackers, and goes a step further by encrypting your messages.
- Easy migration from other email services such as Gmail, Outlook, etc.
- Self-destructing message functionality lets you delete messages automatically after a certain period.
- Cross-integration with our Proton products such as Proton Pass, Proton Drive, and Proton VPN, which is one of the best VPNs for streaming.
- As an alternative to Gmail, the interface could have been more friendly.
2. Outlook
Price – Comes as a part of Microsoft 365
Personal Experience With Outlook
As one of the best alternatives to Gmail, Outlook does a decent job, especially in an organizational setting. It offers great email management and email organization features. It comes with advanced search capabilities and offers Microsoft Copilot writing assistance. For security, you get two-factor authentication, spam filters, safe links, confidential mode, and much more.
About
Microsoft Outlook helps users organize emails, share files, manage calendars, and do much more. It comes with great Email sorting capabilities and the functionality to automatically download cloud attachments.
- Cross-integration with Microsoft Office and other Microsoft products.
- Better privacy and security features.
- Phone and email support.
- Third-party app integration could have been better.
3. Zoho Mail
Price – 15-day free trial. Pricing starts at $1/ User/ month
Personal Experience With Zoho Mail
We liked the “Conversation View” where you can view your email thread as a conversation. It further displays conversation chronologically with the newest email on the top. You can apply this option specifically to your desired folders. Another thing that we found useful is how you can view all your attachments in your mailbox in the “Attachment Viewer”.
About
Zoho Mail is a secure email alternative to Gmail. Offering a commendable and reliable 99.99% uptime. It lets users enjoy secure business email hosting that comes with S/MIME message encryption and supports encryption both in transit and at rest.
- Easily create your business domain and custom email addresses for users.
- Powerful Control Panel for all configurations, settings, and customization.
- Retain emails for a specific period and access them quickly when need be.
- Spam filters sometimes fail to distinguish between what is spam and what is not.
4. Yahoo Mail
Price – Free trial available. Pricing starts at $5/ month
Personal Experience With Yahoo Mail
Since we often have to deal with several conversations in a single thread, Yahoo Mail is yet another email service that’s impressive. It shows you the message completely. Plus, Yahoo Mail automatically groups emails that have the same subject line and sender. This way you can easily deal with emails with the same subject.
About
Yahoo Mail is one of the best emails besides Gmail that offers 1TB storage even with its free plan. With it you can sync other email addresses, customize inbox designs, and even create burner emails as well.
- Easily find documents with the help of Smart Views.
- Several attractive themes to select from.
- Manage emails from multiple providers from one single dashboard.
- Email encryption is lacking.
5. Tuta Mail (Tutanota)
Price – Free trial available. Pricing starts at $10.26 (approx)
Personal Experience With Tuta Mail
One of the best aspects that we liked is that Tuta Mail offers full offline support. Here you can store as many emails as you want locally. Furthermore, you can log in even if you don’t have an internet connection. Also, we found Smart filtering functionality very useful.
About
Tuta is a secure email service that offers an exclusive domain. It encrypts all the elements of your emails, be it email bodies, subject lines, attachments, calendars, address books, and everything else. It is GDPR compliant and offers features like zero-knowledge full-text search, a wide range of smart filters/inbox rules, multi-user support, and various other features.
- Register without a phone number.
- Two-factor authentication.
- Minimalist ‘no bother interface’.
- Lacks server IMAP support.
6. Mailfence
Price – Free Gmail alternative
Personal Experience With Mailfence
As ardent proponents of security, Mailfence’s inbuilt keystore impressed us. It lets you manage OpenPGP encryption keys. You can send encrypted messages to those who don’t use PGP. You can also assign an expiry date to your encrypted messages and control how a recipient gets the password.
About
Mailfence is a secure and private alternative email service to Gmail. It offers OpenPGP-based end-to-end encryption and digital signatures. As an email platform, it lets you access Web, POPS, SMTPS, and IMAPS. It even lets you access third-party mailboxes with ease.
- The poll function lets you vote and find dates for potential meetings.
- With Mailfence Group you can share data and collaborate with other users.
- Instant messaging chat feature lets you message your contacts directly.
- Limited free functionality.
7. StartMail
Price – Free 7-day trial. Pricing starts at $5/ month billed annually as $59.95
Personal Experience With StartMail
One of the highlights of StartMail is that you can create both burners as well as custom email addresses. While the former lasts for an hour, with custom aliases you can select how long you want an email alias address. Plus, we liked how we could migrate to StartEmail without any stress using its email and contact migration tool.
About
StartMail is a web-based email service that lets you create disposable email addresses for every service that you sign up for. It comes with powerful encryption and offers a large amount of storage space to its users. It also protects your privacy by blocking tracking pixels, often used to monitor email activity. Furthermore, it hides your IP address which is revealed in email headers.
- Receive a warning before you click on any external link.
- OpenPGP encryption
- Secure email aliases.
- Could be slightly expensive.
8. Spike
Price – Free trial available. Pricing starts at $8/ user/ month
Personal Experience With Spike
To construct any kind of email or other content, you can take the help of Magic AI offered by Spike. We also liked how it converts traditional email threads into conversations and sorts them in a much more interactive way. It even lets you collaborate with users who may not have an account on Spike.
About
Spike is one of the best alternative email platforms to Gmail. From one place you can manage your emails, chats, messages, and meetings. One of the best aspects of Spike is that it has a Magic AI feature that lets you generate messages. You can further select the tone, format, and length of your message and refine them to your liking.
- You can snooze, pin and auto-archive messages.
- Create messages using AI.
- Privacy-centric, ad-free experience.
- Offline functionality missing.
9. Fastmail
Price – Free trial available. Pricing starts at $6/ month
Personal Experience With FastMail
During the course of testing out the various Gmail alternatives, we found out that many of these like Fastmail let you create temporary alias addresses. But, there is one more thing that you may like about Fastmail and that is it lets you add labels and put emails in folders.
About
Fastmail is one of the best email service providers other than Gmail which is known for its robust features other than just privacy and security. It offers features like scheduling emails, undoing emails sent to the wrong recipients, adding customizable labels, and many others. On top of that in case you get stuck you can seek support from a prompt support team.
- Mask emails with 1Password.
- Quickly cancel a sent email if you want to revise it or think it could be sent to the wrong recipient.
- Get calendars and contacts in one app.
- The search function could have been better.
10. AOL Mail
Price – Free
Personal Experience With AOL Mail
AOL Mail for Desktop offers various smart features. For instance, it offers a subscription view where you can manage and unsubscribe from email lists in 1-tap. It further offers enhanced contact settings with the help of which you can extract physical addresses and phone numbers from your emails and add them to your contacts.
About
AOL Mail is a free web-based email service. It lets users create email accounts for both professional and personal users. It has been around since the early days of the World Wide Web. It is owned by Yahoo. It offers a decent amount of storage and spam protection.
- Delete every single message in a particular category quickly.
- Short domain address that is easy to remember.
- Inbox management is simple and at par with the best.
- Time and again you are prompted to download the AOL app.
Which Gmail Alternative Will You Trust Your Emails With?
Emails are an important mode of communication. And, if you are someone who sends and receives countless emails, you know that many of these emails contain sensitive, personal and crucial information that you’d probably want only the intended senders to read. From a privacy standpoint, switching to a Gmail alternative can be a wise move. That said, it’s not that you should stop using Gmail, but it is always better to have options on hand, isn’t it?
FAQs –
What are the best alternatives to Gmail?
Some of the best alternative email service providers to Gmail include ProtonMail, Microsoft Outlook, Zoho Mail and Tutanota. These offer high end security, bigger storage and offer a wide range of features.
Are there any free alternatives to Gmail?
Most of the alternatives to Gmail alternatives mentioned above offer a free subscription. However, ProtonMail, Tutanota and Zoho Mail are some of the best free email service providers that work on the same lines as Gmail but are more secure.
What is the best email alternative to Gmail with a user-friendly interface?
Microsoft Outlook is a popular choice of Gmail alternative amongst all kinds of users. It has a simple interface. The navigation menu is straightforward and so is using the contacts, emails, calendars and all the other features.
What are the best Gmail alternatives for privacy-conscious users?
ProtonMail, Tutanota, and Mailfence are among the best alternatives for users who prioritize privacy and security. These services offer end-to-end encryption and strong privacy features.
