Requirements:
- free
- will not delete my account due to inactivity
- privacy focused (doesn’t have to be crazy private, just decent)
- doesn’t require my phone number
- doesn’t require an invitation (like riseup mail)
Additionally it would be cool if it allowed me to have few email addresses in 1 account (skiff lets you have 4 addresses you can send emails from, but they are shutting down their service).
has no one heard the phrase beggars cant be choosers?
so many people demanding ‘free’ AND… like thats just something that should exist.
Chill. The OP just asked. If I can’t even ask a question here, it sounds like a communistic dictatorship regime, not like a free and open-source social media platform.
dude calm down. everything will be o.k.
you get what you pay for, so if youre payin nuthin you better level-set your expectations.
This reply has nothing to do with my comment tbh
kk
If you actually read OP post, they are not asking for the moon and… definitely non “demanding” anything.
meh. semantics. my point stands
Sounds like your best bet is to self host an email service
If checking their email a couple of times per year is too high a requirement, I would not recommend the time and effort necessary to maintain a mail server. Even people who enjoy self-hosting often do not want to host a mail server.
Yup.
Buy any domain name, doesn’t matter what. I pay 15 dollars a year for mine. https://gandi.net
https://mailu.io/2.0/ is pretty turnkey
https://github.com/docker-mailserver/docker-mailserver has a lot more customizability and you can chain together stuff like encryption, spam filtering, auto replies with an AI agent. However those are all other containers you’ll have to add into your environment.
https://jzweig.com/blog/setup-your-own-email-server-with-docker/ Is a really simple how to
Whatever you do, pay close attention to your SPF, DKIM and DMARC
https://www.howtogeek.com/devops/dkim-dmarc-and-spf-setting-up-email-security/
Edit: OP asked for free, secure, and doesn’t get taken down for inactivity. If you want to do that and pay as little as possible, with the most security, you’ll have to self host. Otherwise you should pay for the service, or deal with the data brokers that offer free email. In capitalism, unfortunately, there is no free lunch.
Yup.
Buy any domain name, doesn’t matter what.
Suggested to OP and others that self-hosting email is easy and reliable is a bad idea in my opinion.
Instead I suggest the OP to let go of the “free” requirement. There are at least three email providers that provide email for 1 Euro a month including a few email aliases. Another option is to find a web hosting company that also provides email with web hosting. For example Gandi used to do that though I read they made some changes with their hosting options.
I could not agree more. Self hosting is fairly easy for pretty much any need, once you get the hang of it. But self hosting email servers is inherently hard and requires too much maintenance. I tried, did, and then dropped. It’s a real pain in the ass.
Upvoted
Woah, easy, man, you’re asking for too much with such requirements
I mean, without the additional requirement Proton may be sufficient.
Will delete your account due to inactivity. Could ask for a phone number in some cases
Ah yes, true. But it is a whole year, so you’d only need to login once a year.
And what would be a situation where you have to enter a phone number? I only know it’s optional for account recovery.
ProtonMail’s free tier?
They are good, but do not meet the ‘does not delete for inactivity’ requirement. They delete after one year.
IDK about each specific requirement (especially the “inactivity” one, but … dude, just log in every 6 months), but I’d say a lot of “privacy” email providers should meet your needs.
Try looking into Proton mail (warning: you’ll have to setup a local relay if you need IMAP/SMTP) or maybe search the web for something like “privacy email provider free” and look into the results.
These guys are running a very cool email option.
Now, I do believe that they will probably close unused accounts, so there’s that. However, as far as I know, there is no other option out there as private as this one. If there are, please share with us as well.
Tuta.io maybe
As far as I know they delete the account if you don’t log in for a few months.
True, I wasn’t aware. Free accounts get deactivated after 6 months without login. They can only be reactivated using a paid account and the correct credentials.
Sounds like mail.yandex.com should work for you. It’s the Russian copycat of gmail, basically. But they allow anonymous signup with a “don’t have” option for phone numbers, and they have next to no trackers on the website. That ones they have are easily blocked.
I’d be wary of yandex
https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-6851/Yandex.html
Disroot matches your requirements minus the additional criteria.
cock.li but it doesn’t encrypt your inbox so keep that in mind.
They require an invitation though, correct?
not anymore
Thanks, didn’t know they had changed. Been a long while since I looked at them
