22 Best Free Email Service Providers

Submitted by salvadordf on Wed, 02/22/2017 - 09:00

There are many situations when you may need to create a new email account and this list will help you decide which provider to choose. In this article you will find many alternative providers that offer a secure, reliable and fast email service.

Best Free Email Service Providers

You must be aware that most of these companies show ads to pay for the free service and sometimes those companies scan your messages and track your internet activities to show you targeted ads. If you value your privacy read the privacy policy of each service and choose accordingly.

If you just need an extra email account to use for online games, forums or other non important services, then you can choose any of these companies.

In case you need security above all else you have several options to choose from. Stay away of the companies that have a bad record of security breaches or if they hide the security breaches for years.

If you live in the European Union and you need to use an extra email account in your job, remember that you need to comply with the laws about the protection of personal data. If that's the case you should choose a company which has their servers inside the European Union.

If your intention is to use a new email account for your company I would recommend a dedicated server in your company or a hosting service. At the end of this article you'll find more details about this.

This is the list of companies that offer a free email account, in alphabetical order :

AOL Mail​

AOL Mail : AOL offers a free email service even if you're not an AOL member. This service started in 1993.

  • 1Tb mailbox size.
  • 25Mb attachment maximum size.
  • They show ads based on the information they collect from each user.
  • The email features include folders, filters, antispam, antivirus, calendar, contacts and more.
  • Access by WebMail, POP3 and IMAP.

Disroot.org

Disroot is a project maintained by volunteers that offers several decentralized services, including email.

  • 2GB mailbox size.
  • 10MB maximum attachment size.
  • Access by POP3, IMAP and WebMail.
  • The user interface is translated to many languages.
  • It also includes many other services like a cloud storage service, a social network, forums, chat, etc.
  • Disroot respects the users' privacy.
  • They use open source software.

Gmail

Gmail : Google created this service in 2004 and it has 1 billion users.

  • 15Gb mailbox size.
  • 25Mb attachment maximum size.
  • They show ads based on the information they collect from each user.
  • The email features include folders, filters, antispam, antivirus, calendar, contacts and more.
  • Access by WebMail, POP3 and IMAP.

​

GMX Mail

GMX Mail : GMX was founded in 1997 and it's a subsidiary of a german company called United Internet but the service is translated to several languages.

  • Unlimited mailbox size.
  • 50Mb attachment maximum size.
  • They show ads.
  • The email features include folders, antispam, antivirus, calendar and more.
  • Access by WebMail, POP3 and IMAP.

​

Hushmail

Hushmail : Hushmail was founded in 1999 and they use OpenPGP to offer an encrypted email service.

  • 25Mb mailbox size.
  • 20Mb attachment maximum file size. The message can't be bigger than 50Mb.
  • There's a limit of 350 email messages sent daily.
  • Access by WebMail only.

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Lockbin

Lockbin is a web application to send encrypted messages. It's not a normal email service where the message is sent to the recipient. In this case the recipient receives a notifications to read the encrypted message in the Lockbin website.

  • The attached files have a 25 MB maximum size.
  • The messages are stored up to 6 months.
  • Access by WebMail only.

​

Lycos Mail

Lycos Mail : This service was launched in 2006 but this company started in 1995.

  • 3Gb mailbox size.
  • 35Mb attachment maximum size.
  • They show ads.
  • The email features include folders, filters, antispam, antivirus, calendar, contacts and more.
  • Access by WebMail only.

​

Mail.com

Mail.com : Mail.com was founded in 1995 and it's owned by a german company called United Internet but the service is translated to several languages.

  • Unlimited mailbox size.
  • 50Mb attachment maximum size.
  • They show ads.
  • The email features include folders, antispam, antivirus, calendar and more.
  • Access by WebMail only.

​

Mail.ru

Mail.ru : Mail.ru is one of the biggest internet service companies in Russia and it was launched in 1998.

  • Unlimited mailbox size.
  • 25Mb attachment maximum size.
  • They show ads.
  • The email features include folders, filters, antispam, antivirus, calendar, templates and more.
  • Access by WebMail, POP3 and IMAP.

​

Mailfence

Mailfence : Launched in 2013, Mailfence offers OpenPGP encryption and digital signatures in their email service.

  • 200Mb mailbox size.
  • 10Mb attachment maximum size.
  • The email features include contacts, antispam, calendar and more.
  • Access by WebMail, POP(S), IMAP(S) and ActiveSync.

​

Net-C

Net-C was established in France in 1998 as an alternative email provider in Europe that respects the users' privacy.

  • 1 GB mailbox size.
  • They show ads and use web browser cookies.
  • They also include other applications besides email, like a 500MB virtual drive, a photo album, contacts, tasks, reminders, notes, etc.
  • Access by POP3, IMAP and WebMail.
  • 25MB maximum attachment size.

​

OpenMailBox

OpenMailBox is owned by a French company called SASU Initix.

  • 5 GB mailbox size.
  • Access by WebMail for free accounts.
  • OpenMailBox doesn't show ads.
  • They don't share personal data with third parties.

​

Outlook mail

Outlook Mail : Hotmail was launched in 1996 and a year later it was aquired by Microsoft, which renamed it several times and now it's known as "Outlook mail".

  • Unlimited mailbox size. Initially it's 5Gb but it grows as needed.
  • 10Mb attachment maximum size.
  • They show ads.
  • The email features include folders, filters, antispam, antivirus, calendar and more.
  • Access by WebMail, POP3 and IMAP.

​

ProtonMail

ProtonMail : This email service offers end-to-end ecryption and it was launched in 2014 at the CERN research facility. The interface is translated to several languages.

  • 500Mb mailbox size.
  • 25Mb attachment maximum size.
  • There's a limit of 150 email messages sent daily.
  • Partly open source.
  • No personal information required.
  • Customized web interface.
  • The email features include labels, filters, antispam, contacts and more.
  • Access by WebMail only.

​

QQ mail

QQ Mail is owned by Tecent, a Chinese multinational technology company founded in 1998.

  • 2 GB mailbox size.
  • Attached files can't be bigger than 50MB individually or 200MB in total.
  • It includes contacts, calendar, notes, personal folders, spam filters, antivirus, etc.
  • Access by WebMail when the user is just registered in the service. To use POP3 and IMAP the user must wait 14 days.
  • User interface in English and Chinese.

​

Rediffmail

Rediffmail : This is the email service of rediff.com, an indian company founded in 1996. It has 95 million registered users.

  • 1Gb mailbox size.
  • 10Mb attachment maximum size.
  • They show ads.
  • Access by WebMail only.

​

Seznam.cz

Seznam.cz : Seznam is a web portal that includes a search engine and email services. It was founded in 1996 in the Czech Republic and the interface is partly translated to english but most of it is in czech.

  • Unknown mailbox size. Non official sources say that the limit is at 60001 messages.
  • 25Mb attachment maximum size.
  • They show ads.
  • The email features include labels, filters, antispam, antivirus, contacts and more.
  • Access by WebMail, POP3 and IMAP.

​

Tutanota

Tutanota : Tutanota was launched in 2011 by a german company called Tutao GmbH. It's an encrypted email service.

  • 1Gb mailbox size.
  • 25Mb attachment maximum size.
  • Open source.
  • Access by WebMail only.

​

Yahoo! Mail

Yahoo! Mail : This is the multilingual email service offered by Yahoo! since 1997. This company had at least two security breaches and hundreds of millions of accounts were compromised.

  • 1Tb mailbox size.
  • 25Mb attachment maximum size.
  • They show ads based on the information they collect from each user.
  • The email features include folders, antispam, antivirus, calendar, notes and more.
  • Access by WebMail, POP3 and IMAP.

​

Yandex.Mail

Yandex.Mail : This is the email service offered by Yandex, a russian company founded in 1997 that owns the 4th largest search engine in the world.

  • Unlimited mailbox size. Initially it's 10Gb but it grows as needed.
  • 30Mb attachment maximum size.
  • They show ads.
  • Customized web interface.
  • The email features include folders, labels, templates, antispam, antivirus, translator, tasks and more.
  • Access by WebMail, POP3 and IMAP.

​

Zoho Mail

Zoho Mail : This service is offered by the Zoho Corporation, founded in India in 1996.

  • 5Gb mailbox size.
  • 20Mb attachment maximum size.
  • It's part of a set of applications called Zoho Workplace.
  • The email features include filters, folders, labels, templates, antispam, antivirus, tabs, tasks, calendar, notes and more.
  • Access by WebMail, POP3 and IMAP.

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10 Minute Mail

10minutemail.com : 10minutemail caught my eye while searching for the email providers included in this article. 10minutemail is not the usual email service and I'm adding it to this list as a bonus.

They offer disposable email addresses that last only 10 minutes and during that time you can read, replay and forward email messages. After those 10 minutes the account and the messages are deleted but you can prolong it for 10 more minutes if you need it.

This could be useful in some situations where you are forced to give an email address to register in some websites and you don't want to give your regular email address because they could sell it to spammers.

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As I said at the beginning of this article, the safest solution for any company is to have a dedicated email server in a secure place inside your company's offices. That means a big investment in security but you guarantee a total control of all the information passing through your email server.

If you need an email account for your job but you don't want to use a generic free server and you don't want to make investments in dedicated servers I would suggest you to use a hosting service.

With a minimum investment you can have your own domain and a reliable email service without limitations or privacy problems. In addition to having a better email service, creating your own website will help you build awareness of your brand and attract more customers.

Arvixe

I'm a customer of Arvixe and I recommend you to use their hosting services. Their prices are really competitive and if you change your mind, you have a 60 days money back guarantee.

Their hosting service comes with a free domain, a 99.9% site uptime, 24 hour support and a really easy to use control panel where you can create as many email accounts as you like with folders, calendar, tasks, notes, spam blockers, WebMail, POP3, IMAP and unlimited mailbox size.

If you use this link with the coupon codeFRIENDME to use the hosting services ofArvixe you will get a 15% discount and you will also help us maintaining this website alive.

This article was edited July 12th, 2021.

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