Why people leave Gmail
Gmail is the email everyone has. It's free, it's fast, the search is unbeatable, and something like 1.8 billion inboxes run on it. But 'free' is doing a lot of work in that sentence: Gmail is a Google product, your inbox lives on US servers, and Google's whole business is built on knowing as much about you as it possibly can.
The everyday gripes
- 15 GB fills up fast. Storage is shared across Gmail, Drive and Photos, so the 'free' allowance disappears quicker than you'd think – and then it's upgrade time.
- Tabs, promotions and clutter. The inbox arrives pre-sorted into tabs and stuffed with Promotions, and the occasional ad turns up dressed as an email.
- One account to lose. Your email is fused to your entire Google identity – lock yourself out and you lose everything at once.
- It reads along. Gmail parses your mail to add calendar events and track parcels. Convenient, sure – but it means something is always reading over your shoulder.
- Spam filtering you can't see into. Legitimate mail quietly lands in spam and you rarely find out why, which is a nervy way to run an inbox.
And the bigger one – where your data actually lives
- It answers to US law. Google is a US company, which puts your inbox under the CLOUD Act – American authorities can compel access to your mail wherever in the world it's stored.
- Ruled an illegal monopoly. A US federal court found in 2024 that Google illegally monopolised online search, the same business whose ad revenue cross-subsidises Gmail's free tier.
- Your inbox feeds the profile. Google stopped scanning message content to target ads back in 2017, but your Gmail account is still part of the wider Google profile that powers its advertising business.
The good news: Europe does email exceptionally well. These providers are private, independent, and hosted on this side of the Atlantic – and here are the five we rate highest, scored on our EuroPoints is PickEurope's scoring system. It rates each service out of 100, across legal jurisdiction, ownership, data sovereignty, and accountability. Learn more → system and ranked honestly, weaknesses and all.
1. Tuta Mail
Tuta Mail is our top pick, and it earns a perfect EuroPoints score. It’s built in Hannover, fully Open source software has publicly available code, which anyone can inspect, so claims about privacy and security can be independently checked. Learn more → , self-funded, and every mailbox is encrypted by default on servers that never leave Germany. No ads, no tracking, and it’s been independently audited.
The trade-off is Tuta’s own encryption: because it doesn’t use standard PGP or IMAP, you can’t plug it into Apple Mail or Outlook – you use Tuta’s own apps. For most people that’s a fair price for genuinely private email, but if you live in a third-party mail client, it’s worth knowing up front.
Search still works even though everything is encrypted end to end, and Tuta is unusual in encrypting subject lines as well as message bodies by default – most competitors leave those exposed.
Full IMAP access for third-party mail clients sits behind a paid plan, so free users are limited to Tuta's own apps rather than Outlook, Thunderbird or Apple Mail.
| Service | EuroPoints | Tier | Country | From | Open source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tuta Mail | 100 | Certified European | Germany | Free | Yes |
 Posteo | 100 | Certified European | Germany | €1/mo | Partial |
 Mailfence | 98 | Certified European | Belgium | Free | No |
 Runbox | 95 | Certified European | Norway | $1.66/mo | Partial |
 Proton Mail | 80 | Strongly European | Switzerland | Free | Partial |
2. Posteo
Posteo ties Tuta at the very top, and gets there through almost aggressive simplicity. For a flat €1 a month it gives you ad-free, tracker-free email run entirely on renewable energy by a tiny Berlin operation that has taken no outside investment since 2009 – it doesn’t even ask for your name to sign up.
There’s no free tier and no custom domains: Posteo is deliberately one thing done well, not a suite. If you want calendars-and-contacts-and-everything, look elsewhere. If you want the cleanest, greenest inbox going for about a euro a month, it’s hard to beat.
€1 a month buys ad-free, fully green-powered email with calendar, contacts and cloud storage bundled in, and cash payments keep sign-up genuinely anonymous if you want that.
There's no free tier to try before you buy, and support runs on email tickets rather than live chat – don't expect an instant answer to a question.
3. Mailfence
If you miss having everything in one place, Mailfence is the closest thing here to a full Google Workspace replacement. The Belgian service pairs encrypted email with a calendar, contacts, document storage and groups, and it supports proper OpenPGP so you can exchange encrypted mail with anyone. The company behind it has run email services since 1999, with every server in Belgium.
It isn’t open-source, and the free tier is tight on storage, so you’ll probably want a paid plan. But as an all-in-one that behaves like the suite you’re leaving, it’s excellent.
Calendar, contacts, documents and groups all come bundled with the mailbox, and built-in OpenPGP key management makes encrypted mail more approachable than most alternatives.
The interface looks noticeably dated next to Gmail or Proton, and mobile access relies on standard IMAP setup rather than a polished native client.
4. Runbox
Runbox is the quiet veteran – a Norwegian provider running independently since 2000 on infrastructure powered by Norwegian hydroelectric energy. It’s privacy-respecting, sustainable, and supports IMAP, so it drops straight into the mail app you already use.
It’s paid-only (though there’s a 30-day trial and it’s just $1.66 a month), the interface shows its age, and it doesn’t do End-to-end encryption means only the sender and receiver can read a message. Not even the company running the service can access it. Learn more → by default. But for a stable, green, no-drama mailbox that works everywhere, Runbox delivers.
Power comes from Norwegian hydroelectric plants rather than a generic data-centre contract, and storage and alias limits are generous compared with similarly priced rivals.
The webmail interface feels dated next to Proton or Tuta's modern apps, and there's no free tier – only a 30-day trial.
5. Proton Mail
Proton Mail is the name most people reach for first, and for good reason – it’s polished, end-to-end encrypted, and comes with a whole ecosystem (VPN, Drive, Calendar, Pass) built around the same Geneva team. If you want the most Gmail-like experience with real privacy, this is it.
So why is it last on our list? Purely the EuroPoints maths: Proton is VC-backed, including outside investors like Temasek, and our score rewards the fully independent, bootstrapped providers above it. That’s a methodology call, not a knock on the product – Proton Mail is genuinely excellent, and for plenty of people it’ll be exactly the right switch.
Calendar, VPN, Pass and Drive share the same login, so switching from Gmail also means picking up a full privacy suite in one go, with apps as polished as Google's own.
The free plan gives just 1 GB of storage and a single address, so anyone with years of email history will need to upgrade to keep it all.
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The verdict
For the most thoroughly European, most private inbox, Tuta Mail is the pick – open-source, encrypted, and free to start. Want it even simpler and greener? Posteo, for a euro a month. Need the whole suite in one place? Mailfence. And if you want the famous, polished option with an ecosystem around it, Proton Mail is a no-brainer – just know it trades a little independence for that shine. Any of them keeps your email in European hands, which is the whole point.
Ditching more than Gmail?
Our Degoogle guide maps every Google service to a European alternative.
Read the guide → Frequently asked questions
What's the best European alternative to Gmail?
Tuta Mail tops our EuroPoints ranking with a perfect 100. It's German, fully open-source, and encrypted by default. Posteo ties it on score if you'd rather pay a euro a month for something greener and simpler. The best pick really depends on whether you want free and open-source, cheap and green, or the polish of a bigger ecosystem.
Are these more private than Gmail?
Yes. None of them build an advertising profile out of your inbox, several (Tuta, Proton Mail, Mailfence) offer end-to-end encryption, and all five are covered by European data law rather than the US CLOUD Act.
Can I get a European email account for free?
Several have free tiers – Tuta, Proton Mail and Mailfence all let you start for nothing. Posteo and Runbox are paid, but only about a euro a month, and they skip ads and tracking entirely.
Can I keep my Gmail messages when I switch?
Mostly, yes. Most of these let you import your existing mail and contacts, and you can set Gmail to forward to your new address while you tell people you've moved. Tuta and Proton use their own encryption, so importing happens through their apps rather than standard IMAP.
Will these work with my phone and mail apps?
All five have web and mobile apps. Most support standard IMAP, so they drop straight into Apple Mail or Outlook – Tuta and Proton Mail are the exceptions, where the encryption means you use their own apps (or a bridge, in Proton's case).
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