Most people use at least one free email account for regular correspondence. In addition to being free, these services are also convenient and easy to use. If you’re setting up an email account for the first time or want to try a new service, read on to see which one suits your needs best.
what to look for in free email services
- User Experience: Checking your email shouldn’t be difficult. the best free email accounts have a user-friendly interface with easy navigation and intuitive tools.
- storage capacity: advanced users and archivists need as much storage space as possible to save your correspondence ; email storage capacity for the services on this list range from 500mb to unlimited.
- attachment size: sending large attachments such as images, videos, and Files is essential for many email users; Attachment size limits for the products in this article range from 20 to 25 MB. but there are ways around these limitations.
- offline availability: You won’t always have an internet connection when you need to check your email. be sure to choose a free email service that lets you read and reply to emails when you’re out of reach.
- Spam Protection: Unsolicited email has struck to users since the invention of email. the best free email services mean you don’t even see spam or scams.
- Personalization: Your email is personal, and so is the experience of reading it. a free premium account lets you choose themes, add extensions, and customize the experience of sending and receiving email.
- integration: all of the free email services shown below. They are then interconnected with other products offered by the company. things like calendars, contact lists, cloud-based services, chat apps, and more can take any email account to the next level of usefulness. be careful to choose the service that best suits your current technology ecosystem.
- search options: Keeping track of your email can quickly get out of hand. the best free email services offer powerful search and organization tools that help you find what you need quickly and keep your inbox clutter-free.
- encryption: keeping Keeping your personal information and private messages away from prying eyes is essential in today’s technological landscape. If you’re worried about your big brother reading your mail, choose an email service that encrypts your transmissions before sending.
- Additional email features: from scheduling and canceling the one-click unsubscribe emails and support for multiple accounts, each of the products selected for this article has a unique selection of special features. Before you sign up for anything, take a look at the services feature list to see if it has everything you need.
best for most users: gmail
Gmail is the most popular free email service on the planet. And there are many good reasons for that. Chief among them is that Gmail is easy to use, even for the least tech-savvy among us. Additionally, your Gmail address works with every other free Google service available. From Google Docs, Sheets, and Calendar to Google Meet, Chat, Sites, and even YouTube, just one sign-in to use them all.
gmail has almost perfected the art of classifying email. There are three tabs in your inbox: main, social, and promotions. these tabs help you keep track of what’s important and what you can wait (or delete) for later. however, it is not flawless. sometimes you will miss the emails because they are marked as promotional and placed in that tab. that’s why you should review each section from time to time. or just disable the feature altogether.
There are a couple of downsides. the first is storage. while you get 15gb of storage space it is on google drive. So if you use Google Drive to store things other than email, like documents, pictures, videos, and more, you could quickly run out of space.
The second is privacy. While Google claims that it has stopped scanning your emails to extract data to show you ads, its ability to do so remains in its Terms of Service. so who knows if they actually stopped or quietly started again.
larger storage space: aol mail
Decades after America Online faded as the number one internet service provider in the United States, AOL Mail is still going strong. The most compelling reason to get that retro email address is that it offers unlimited storage capacity. That means that you can archive every message you get without running out of space. For power users, that’s invaluable.
also, you can forget what spam is. AOL’s many years of delivering email have given them plenty of time to develop spam filters and blockers that the rest of the tech industry envies. and its intuitive browser interface makes it easy to read, write, and send emails.
One of the frustrating aspects of aol mail is that it doesn’t have an email-only mobile app. You have to use the AOL app to read your messages on the go. while not a deal breaker, when you don’t care or want the latest news, weather, and sports, it’s annoying to go through the trash to get to your messages. Also, you can’t import your contacts from social networking sites like facebook.
best for microsoft users: outlook
If you ever wondered what happened to Hotmail, Microsoft bought it in 1997, and after several name changes, it became the free version of Microsoft’s Outlook 365. And it works well with other Microsoft’s online services like Skype, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneDrive, and more. So, if you’re entrenched in the Microsoft ecosystem, Outlook is the natural (and probably most logical) choice for free email.
In addition, outlook.com allows you to set up email addresses for other services. so, you can have your email from gmail, icloud, yahoo! mail and more, all in one place. no more multiple websites or mobile apps to keep track of your email from other services. you also get several alias email addresses to protect your privacy.
Outlook’s disadvantages include the fact that the browser interface features other Microsoft applications predominantly in the sidebar. although the integration with word, excel, powerpoint, etc. is great, you don’t necessarily need the buttons for them in an unclosable tab of your email window. google integrates gmail with their other products, but they don’t have docs, spreadsheets, meetings, etc. from google, which clutters the web interface. Another downside is that you only get 5GB of free storage. If you need more storage, you can upgrade to Microsoft’s productivity suite: Office 365.
There is also the question of its name. a free outlook account is not the same service as the outlook app found in microsoft’s paid productivity suite: office 365. recycling the name of an existing paid product and applying it to a free service makes it very easy to confuse them.
best for apple users: icloud mail
iCloud Mail is one of the central services you get when you sign up for an Apple ID. And the Mail app comes preinstalled on every Apple computer and mobile device. So, it makes sense that Apple users would naturally use the service. And, like Google, you can use your Apple ID to log into other iCloud services like iCloud Drive, Notes, Pages, Numbers, Find My, and more through the iCloud website.
The mail app is a basic affair, nothing more than email. it’s a refreshing change from some of the other email services in this article. but, some may prefer a central location for all their icloud services. For them, signing in to the icloud website is a good solution. Plus, like Mail, all other Apple iCloud products come pre-loaded on every Apple computer and mobile device.
if you want to use the mail application for other email addresses, you can configure the application to receive messages from google, yahoo! aol, microsoft and more.
Another thing worth mentioning is that when you sign up for icloud mail, you get two apple email addresses. one is attached to the icloud.com domain and the other to the .me domain.
You can get your icloud mail on non-apple devices, but it takes some work. There are some dedicated android apps to get your mail from icloud but some technical knowledge is required. if you’re not tech-savvy, it’s a confusing process. so keep that in mind if you’re thinking of leaving the apple ecosystem.
best encrypted email: protonmail
If total privacy is what you want, ProtonMail is what you need. In addition to end-to-end encryption for all messages, the service offers a host of security features like PhishGuard, arguably the most effective way to protect yourself from phishing attacks. Plus, Link Protection shows you the full URL of a link before opening it on the mobile device. And on top of all that, ProtonMail’s servers are located in Switzerland, which has some of the most strict privacy laws in the world.
In addition to mail, Proton also offers a built-in calendar, a free VPN, cross-platform support (including Linux), and ProtonDrive that protects your files from prying eyes.
If you’re worried about the hassle of switching to protonmail, you’ll be pleased to hear they’ve made the migration easy. the import wizard for free accounts only takes a few taps to make the switch. If you have multiple email addresses, you can import all of them, but you’re limited to doing two at a time.
There are some major drawbacks to the service. the most remarkable thing is that you can only send 150 emails a day. and for heavy email users, this just won’t work. Also, Protonmail has a minuscule storage limit: 500MB, only half a gigabyte. therefore, you will have to choose which emails are worth saving after a while.
best email for multiple addresses: yahoo mail
Yahoo! Mail is one of the oldest free email services around. And while it’s not as popular as it used to be, it’s stood the test of time and innovated over the years. The most notable feature Yahoo! Mail has over most of the competition is its massive storage capacity: 1TB. Second only to AOL Mail’s unlimited storage. So, it’s great for users who send hundreds of emails a day.
another advantage in the column of yahoo! is the ability to create disposable email addresses. that’s invaluable for those who need to remain anonymous online. other services in this article offer additional addresses but do not come close to the scale of yahoo! mail.
yahoo! takes viruses seriously. every message is automatically scanned for malware before it reaches your inbox. Additional security features include alerts for spam and phishing scams. however, the services’ spam filter doesn’t always work, and sometimes you have to set up your own filtering system, which can be a hassle. There’s also the option to mark every unsolicited email as spam, but that gets nasty fast.
if you are concerned about privacy, yahoo! mail may not be the right choice. by default yahoo! mail scans all your messages for keywords that help the company target ads to your needs. but you can opt out if you dig deep enough into your settings.