this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2025
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I've been looking to switch from gmail to a different email provider that's more private. I've been hearing about Tuta, are there any drawbacks to it? Are there better options?

For a while I was planning on making the switch to protonmail but that's off the table now due to the recent events surrounding them.

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[–] serendipity@aussie.zone 2 points 18 minutes ago

If you don’t want to run your own mail server then there will always be a trade off somewhere. That trade off could be high costs to pay a tech firm to run a private mail server for you, could be lack of features, could be privacy, could be a lot of things. Even with your own mail server there will be trade offs around security etc. depending upon your skillset.

Personally, I have a hybrid approach.

  • Business is on a mail server
  • Personal with sensitive data (health, bills, etc.) is on a mail server
  • Personal - subscriptions, newsletters, etc. is on Proton
  • Everything else is on Gmail

I also have other accounts (e.g. DDG, Apple Mail, for specific use cases, but I forward the content I receive there into Gmail.

I’ve had a look at Tuta and haven’t seen enough to convince me to move anything there. I’m not going to move my mail servers to a cloud provider, Gmail is there because the address is 20 years’ old and I can’t be bothered updating everywhere that it’s used, and Proton has been great for years, has grown well, and has a corporate mission that I agree with. DDG, Apple Mail etc. is what the internet sees of me - They generate unique email addresses and then I forward the content I want into Gmail, or sometimes Proton.

[–] eight_byte@feddit.org 2 points 1 hour ago

I am very happy with Proton.

[–] monsterpiece42@reddthat.com 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

What did proton do wrong? Legit question, I'm out of the loop.

[–] anonymous@lemm.ee 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Nothing. It's just FUD.

Here's an article about it: https://medium.com/@ovenplayer/does-proton-really-support-trump-a-deeper-analysis-and-surprising-findings-aed4fee4305e

Even if the CEO did support the orange turd, I would personally still be able to separate his personal opinion from what the non profit is doing.

[–] monsterpiece42@reddthat.com 1 points 6 minutes ago

That was informative, thanks.

I agree with you, I would be extremely surprised if the Proton CEO supported Trump.. I would say very unlikely.

[–] feoh@lemmy.ml 7 points 6 hours ago

It's not Tuta but I adore Fastmail.

No BS. No gimmicks. Just privacy aware, protocol conformant E-mail at a reasonable price.

[–] 0x0@programming.dev 10 points 7 hours ago
[–] scheep@lemmy.world 4 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

I’ve tried tuta before. It seems pretty okay, but it doesn’t support IMAP meaning you have to use their app, and (at least for me) it was SLOW.

I personally use disroot, but there’s loads of other options, like mailfence seems like a decent alternative. Just pick one that supports IMAP

[–] MischievousGT@feddit.org 5 points 6 hours ago

I'm using Tuta and their app for a few years now. The app was slow indeed but it's good now, no problems so far. Lack of IMAP support is justified with security, they say. I personaly don't need IMAP as I'm completely satisfied with the app, which is available officially in f-droid btw.

[–] Termight@lemmy.ml 3 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

No single organization should be trusted. "Emails paint an intimate narrative of ourselves — the people we talk to, the books we read, the politics we practice. This information is powerful. When we lose control over it, it can do great harm to ourselves and our loved ones." https://ideas.ted.com/why-we-should-all-care-about-encryption-really/

[–] Cgers@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

What's the practical takeaway here? Just don't have an email basically

[–] JustAnotherKay@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago

Take control of your data. Host your own email or use a provider that cares about your privacy.

We talk about this so often in privacy communities because, although emails are particularly difficult to secure, they're so important. Swapping your email provider or hosting your own is so easy to say and so hard to do, but so worth doing. I would suggest taking some steps towards FLOSS/FOSS and other privacy-friendly options in other areas first to get used to the idea of change and some of the difficulties you'll handle in that realm

[–] Termight@lemmy.ml 2 points 5 hours ago

What’s the practical takeaway here? Just don’t have an email basically

@Cgers@lemmy.dbzer0.com The takeaway here is not "don't use email at all." You can employ OpenPGP, and encrypt your emails. Also, host your own keys. Perhaps don’t allow a single corporation to have your private key and access to your encrypted messages simultaneously.

[–] confuser@lemmy.zip 3 points 10 hours ago

I started using fastmail, best thing I decided to do in awhile

[–] cypherpunks@lemmy.ml 6 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

Tuta's product is snake oil.

A cryptosystem is incoherent if its implementation is distributed by the same entity which it purports to secure against.

If you don't care about their (nonstandard, incompatible, and snake oil) end-to-end encryption feature and just want a freemium email provider which (purports to) protect your privacy in other ways, the fact that their flagship feature is snake oil should still be a red flag.

[–] Coldcell@sh.itjust.works 2 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Is there anything about Startmail (company that does Startpage.com) that is worth avoiding? I've never paid for mail but if it's solid and avoids Google I might.

[–] cypherpunks@lemmy.ml 5 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

StartPage/StartMail is owned by an adtech company who's website boasts that they "develop & grow our suite of privacy-focused products, and deliver high-intent customers to our advertising partners" 🤔

They have a whitepaper which actually does a good job explaining how end-to-end encryption in a web browser (as Tuta, Protonmail, and others do) can be circumvented by a malicious server:

The malleability of the JavaScript runtime environment means that auditing the future security of a piece of JavaScript code is impossible: The server providing the JavaScript could easily place a backdoor in the code, or the code could be modified at runtime through another script. This requires users to place the same measure of trust in the server providing the JavaScript as they would need to do with server-side handling of cryptography.

However (i am not making this up!) they hilariously use this analysis to justify having implemented server-side OpenPGP instead 🤡

[–] zod000@lemmy.ml 4 points 6 hours ago

Wow, that is very disappointing. I had started using startpage as a Google alternative. While it still may be preferable to Google specifically, their mail product is definitely out.

[–] perishthethought@lemm.ee 17 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

I've used Tuta for more than 4 years. It's a solid choice if you accept a couple few things:

  • they're a small company, doing their best to survive.

  • you have to use their client apps. They take security very seriously and assume all of their users do as well.

  • prices might go up every few years but I am still paying my original rate, for my original features.

  • the search function does work but is very slow.

But otherwise, I'm very happy and expect to stay with them for the forseeable. Good luck in your search.

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 24 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (8 children)

~~Tuta and~~ Posteo are both pretty excellent (posteo is cheaper, but has a few less options that might be a deal breaker if you need them, like custom domain support).

Disroot is a good free option, and they offer custom domains after a one time donation.

Mailbox is okay, though they are known to have a very odd 2fa, and will recycle your address if you ever stop paying, allowing others to claim it and potentially impersonate you.

Posteo is unique in that they'll never delete your account for inactivity, or even if you stop paying, where they'll let you access and read emails, but not let you send them until you pay again.

Edit: apparently Tuta is going downhill according to others here, which is unfortunate :(

[–] nixx1338@feddit.nl 1 points 45 minutes ago* (last edited 45 minutes ago) (1 children)

Mailbox.org beta offers regular 2FA setup via authenticator. I've been using it for months and I'm yet to run into any issues.

In general, I've been with MBO for almost a year and I'm happy with the service. You basically get a complete replacement for the google suite which you can use via your app(s) of choice.

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 1 points 28 minutes ago

Glad to hear they're improving the 2FA! I did forget about their office suite and file storage ability, which does set them apart from all except Proton.

[–] reksas@sopuli.xyz 4 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

thanks for mentioning disroot, that seems much more like what i was looking for than tuta which i was originally going to try out.

[–] badwetter@kbin.melroy.org 2 points 2 hours ago

@reksas@sopuli.xyz

Disroot is good, I've used them b4.

@countrypunk@slrpnk.net @ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net

[–] umami_wasbi@lemmy.ml 13 points 21 hours ago

Posteo's lack of custom domain support can be augemented by using Addy.io or other similar email proxy/forward services.

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[–] drkt_@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (2 children)

In comparison to Gmail? Yes, but that's a very low bar to clear. You need to be aware that Tuta are currently enshittifying. The product is getting worse and the price increases. It's slow, but it's happening. I switched to disroot.org after 2 years of Tuta because I got fed up with it.

It is in my Scrolls of Grudge, and I quote:

Ads in web UI for paying user.
Made it hard to cancel payment.
Newsletter is just upselling.
Can't unsub from newsletter.

[–] Sarcasmo220@lemmy.ml 13 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

I am a paid user of Tuta and I have never seen any ads. Where did you see them and what kind of ads?

[–] perishthethought@lemm.ee 10 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (1 children)

_drkt provided no proof of Tuta's enshittification. There are no paid ads for third party products in any Tuta UI. Don't panic yet. Read all the comments here, maybe.

[–] drkt_@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

no paid ads for third party products

Haha you almost fucking got me, I actually wrote a whole thing about how those are ads but then I read your comment again and noticed that clever little write-off. Ads for their own products are still ads and I don't want to fucking see it. Get that shit off my eyeballs, I paid for this product.

The newsletter is an ad, it's not news. They're just advertising their products to you and you can't unsubscribe and you can't ignore it because they very deliberately have a special styling for the newsletters that makes it stand out from normal emails.

I don't know why you want to defend this company. I'm glad you're okay with the level of shitty behavior they engage in; it's definitely less than most email providers do- I'm just letting people know that Tuta aren't angels. They're a company, and they used to be better. Proton was exactly the same. It was a good service and then it became shitty.

I would love to log back in and show you the 3 separate buttons on my UI that did nothing except link to a "Please pay us for this feature" page because I was a legacy premium user because I didn't want all those new bullshit they made. I stress that it's not a case of them implementing a button in the UI for all users and because I'm a legacy user I get it too even if I can't use it- the buttons had special CSS to make them stand out. They were ads. Why couldn't Tuta just leave me alone? I could still be paying them to this day if they had just not gone down that path. I just want an email that is an email and nothing more and doesn't get in my way. Tuta had that, and then they took it away and asked for more money to put it back.

I think the misunderstanding here is that I was a legacy premium user. I was paying less to get only the email+calendar because that's what I signed up for, originally. When people sign up today, that's not an option. People who are new to Tuta (relatively) haven't seen this change happen and haven't witnessed how obviously desperate Tuta was to get people off the legacy premium plan.

Also my name is drkt_ but I'm sure you tried your best.

[–] Libb@jlai.lu 1 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

Get that shit off my eyeballs, I paid for this product.

You should try Proton, then /s

Proton constantly tries to push you to upgrade to their next plaid plan too. So much so that this coupled with still zero fucking support for Proton Drive under Linux are the two reasons I have cancelled my paid Proton plan... and I had been paying for years.

edit: typos

[–] drkt_@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah, I know! Don't say that too loud, though. Proton and Tuta are the precious baby boys who can do no wrong in most "privacy" communities.

[–] Libb@jlai.lu 1 points 6 hours ago

Those two services have strengths but they also have some drawbacks, that are more or less painful depending one's needs. If there are people out there who feel so empty that they can't stand any critics concerning a product they think is great, well, what can I say? I'm so sorry for them.

[–] chaoticnumber@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 19 hours ago

NOOOOOOO! Shit! Ah, for the love of cthulu ... damnit!

Sigh ... this just bummed me out. Thanks for the info.

[–] 18107@aussie.zone 6 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

I've had a bug with the android app where sometimes notifications for emails just don't happen. I've received a new email notification, opened the app, and found that the notification was for an email received 5 hours ago, and I didn't get any notification for the email 3 days ago or the email 1 hour ago.

Despite this issue and several other minor issues, I still recommend Tuta. Mostly because I can't find anything better.

[–] FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website 2 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

If you're on Android, by any chance, have you gone through all the battery optimization, background process killing, and startup settings? Some OEM's versions of Android are real bad in that way. Giving the app the right settings and permissions may decrease the number of delayed notifications like that.

[–] 18107@aussie.zone 3 points 13 hours ago

I am using Android until I can find an alternative. I've turned off all optimisations I can find. I haven't had the issue in a few weeks, but it did happen once since changing settings. I'm hoping that something random I did (like a phone restart) somehow fixed everything.

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[–] brownmustardminion@lemmy.ml 13 points 22 hours ago (6 children)

I've used Tuta for years, paid account with multiple custom domains.

I prefer them for their principles, but their clients are extremely frustrating. Emails load very slowly and their email search is basically unusable.

I've resorted to downloading old emails and using other clients to import and search through them. I really wish they would improve their email search.

[–] scheep@lemmy.world 2 points 7 hours ago

yep, the app is SLOW

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[–] ethancedwards8@programming.dev 0 points 10 hours ago

I recommend mailbox.org instead.

[–] BroBot9000@lemmy.world 7 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

I’m currently planning on switching to Tuta as well. They have been the most recommended replacement since the proton incident.

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