E-mail providers: what are the alternatives to Gmail?

Gmail, the e-mail service developed by Google, has been the largest free, ad-financed e-mail service in the world since 2012. Gmail is easy to use, simple to connect, usable on a wide variety of devices, and, thanks to Google, accessible practically everywhere. But not everybody is a fan of the American company. Plus, there are some Gmail alternatives that can easily keep up with the search engine giant’s e-mail service. But which functions do these alternatives offer, and to what extent do they differ from Google’s e-mail service?

Whether personal or professional: countless messages are sent every day on different channels. In 2017, around 269 billion e-mails were sent and received per day across the world.

A good e-mail service is characterised by the ease with which is allows you to send and receive data, messages, and images – preferably at any time and from anywhere. Data security is also an important point of concern for most users. After all, very private information – including applications, bank information, or account data – is sometimes sent via e-mail. Ease of use is also a major factor for the success of a portal that can set the e-mail service apart from its competition.

In the following sections, we’ll first briefly discuss Gmail as the top e-mail service provider so that we can then discuss the most interesting Gmail alternatives.

If you use the paid e-mail service Posteo, you can rest assured that your confidential information will never be seen by a third party. This is because with Posteo your data is protected by comprehensive encryption and two-factor authentication (TOTP). Saved data can also be encrypted. Beyond that, Posteo allows you to create an e-mail address without providing any personal information.

With a cost of only one Euro per month, Posteo is a very affordable alternative for securely sending your data. The “green” e-mail provider encrypts all data in your account: from the calendar to addresses and images. Posteo also uses 100% green electricity from Greenpeace Energy.

Though Yahoo Mail had some difficulties getting started, the mail portal can now easily keep up with the best Gmail alternatives. Like many other alternatives to Gmail, Yahoo is also usable on various iPhones as well as Android and Windows devices. Contacts can easily be imported from social networks – Yahoo even provides an impressive 1TB of storage space. The service also offers a manually configurable spam filter and a chat function with which you can receive SMS messages.

As opposed to Google, Yahoo allows its users to send e-mails with very large attachments. Through Dropbox, Yahoo Mail can send attachments up to 2GB in size. For those who needs lots of storage space and would like to send and receive larger amounts of data, Yahoo is a good choice. Gmail offers more functions for organisation and daily planning, though.

For the free Gmail alternatives that don’t already offer unlimited storage, additional storage space can be acquired with paid extensions. Both individual add-ons as well as extension packages with additional extras are available.

Most alternatives to Gmail are characterised by high levels of data security. This is because Google’s general terms and conditions allow the provider to read e-mail content. But Gmail isn’t the only e-mail service with questionable data protection.

If you’re looking for a free alternative that guarantees better data protection, then switching to one of the providers discussed in this article could be a logical move. Some of the free versions offer fewer functions – for organising appointments, for example – and a relatively small amount of storage, but this can usually be solved with a paid upgrade. The paid service Posteo boasts particularly high levels of data security, in addition to its green business practices. Gmail may earn points when it comes to user-friendliness, but if you place more value on the security of your data rather than the ease of your use, then alternatives to Gmail can hardly be overlooked.