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Comment by wil421 | Hacker News Reader

Anyone using ProtonMail regularly? I created an account but haven’t used it much.

How are your experiences? Any iOS users who can comment on their experience with proton mail and the default mail client?

I don’t went to switch to something that won’t be around in a decade or so.

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One major issue with the iOS client is that it cannot handle more than one Inbox. So, if you use two accounts (e.g. home and work), you can only be logged in in one at a time, and have to go through the full sign-in-sign-out process each time you want to switch. And my understanding is that the iOS app doesn't actually cache email offline, so it's not terribly possible to work on an airplane, etc.

Also, understand that due to the encrypted nature, you can't just point an IMAP client at their servers. They offer separate software to serve as a bridge, but it's complicated. So, you are only using their web interface. They don't offer a native app for OS X, even. So again, no offline mail processing.

I recently put serious thought into moving my personal and business presences to PM to support the idea and normalize serious encryption, but ultimately felt like my need of the security it provides doesn't justify the complexity and UX compromises it forces. But ymmv.

Same with Android, only one account in free version. But I think when switched to pro, one can use more than 1 proton mail account in their app.

My understanding is that this isn't a free/pro distinction, but a "Feature on the Roadmap". But I'd be delighted to find out I'm wrong.

I stand corrected[1], premium users can 'Combine multiple accounts into 1 account'.

[1]:https://protonmail.com/support/knowledge-base/combine-accoun...

Yep, that's fine, but it's not much of a firewall. And unless I'm mis-reading this, this doesn't allow you to combine multiple domains.

I've setup multiple domains on the same Protonmail account. You can create new addresses (@protonmail.ch/protonmail.com/pm.me/domain) with a paid account (iirc up to 5 total addresses with Protonmail Plus).

We are currently working on adding multiple user support for mobile clients, should be released in a few months.

Have you tried the Bridge? We are putting a lot of development effort into making that UX very seamless.

We use proton for our business mail (small startup < 10 people). The app itself, and web interface are great. However i wish they'd stop dicking around with crypto and actually start working on some features that are outright required for businesses to operate (mail flow rules, signatures using html, group setting/enforcing of signatures, 2fa, password policy, tagging mail as outside of the org/inserting headers, making bridge better).

The idea is great, works well, and we support it as best we can. However they REALLY need to step up their game in terms of making it easy to manage as opposed to just "moar security!". I put in tickets for each of the aforementioned pain points 6 months ago, and heard nothing back really. I doubt the developers ever got to see them. If they want more money and more users, which i'm sure they do, they need to really step up their game in terms of group management and onboarding.

Hey, I work with ProtonMail. Sorry you haven't heard back from support. Would you mind sending the feedback to enterprise@protonmail.com? We're actively working on getting most of the mentioned features out the door, but would love to get some specifics from you.

In case I don't hear from you, HTML Signatures are live.

Thanks!

Will email later thanks for letting me know this. The specifics I was getting at was being able to paste a raw html signature or set a signature for a group of people. You can use html in signatures but you're limited to using you tinymce editor. It does, however, work and save properly if you edit the source of the page and then save it...so I can't see why I can't just paste in my html as is? Anyway, sorry for having a bit of a rant here. I'll forward the specific tickets etc. I sent later today. Cheers

Switched to FastMail recently as I like to stay productive and didn't want to use Google Calendar.

I adopted a mix of both: FM for non-secure and calendar stuff, ProtonMail.ch for stuff that needs to stay private. I do love FastMail -- just wish their iOS app allowed me to sign into and switch between multiple FM accounts like Gmail does. The lack of this feature is the ONLY reason I'm not Gmail-free yet.

Makes sense, ProtonMail's calendar will be released next year.

I love Protonmail! I use it both on desktop and Android. It's interface is very basic, but that's the way I like it. I pay for it as well as ProtonVPN so they will hopefully stay in business.

Been using it as my main account for over a year, have an old gmail account which I'm giving a bit longer grace period until old clients and contacts stop emailing. Using it on iOS, it's works great but don't expect many features. Same can be said of the webapp. I use a custom domain so I'm not worried about it shutting down, I'll migrate to something else. One issue I've had is emails from new contacts sometimes showing up in junk.

Sorry about the issue with mail from new contacts ending up in junk. We're working on improving inbound spam filtering. For now, make sure you move those messages to the inbox folder, this will add them to your whitelist (which you can adjust within the Settings of your account).

Thanks for getting back to me, I have been moving those messages back into the inbox, I'll take a look at the whitelist. Overall very happy with the service and ProtonVPN too. Keep it up!

I've been using it as my primary email since around May of 2017. I can only speak for the web and Android versions of protonmail, and those work pretty well (comparable to the gmail app and gmail in the browser).

I'm using the paid version of protonmail with a custom domain, giving me the ability to somewhat easily switch to a different provider in the future if they go out of business or end up losing my trust.

I switched to ProtonMail from Gmail (with a custom domain) about 6 months ago. The web app is a bit janky, compared to Gmail, but I use Apple Mail with their desktop bridge app and they work fairly well, together. Their iOS client is comparable to the default mail client, but not to the Gmail app in terms of features.

Would love to get more feedback on what you would like to see in the iOS app. You can add feedback here: https://protonmail.uservoice.com/ or send it to us directly. Next feature coming to the iOS app is multi-user support.

I use a ProtonMail address for online accounts whose content I don't need intermingled with my personal mail.

I also use a ProtonMail "+" alias when signing up for a totally new service (with a filter to place emails from that alias directly in Spam; as all it does is handle account signup/verify). If I can't change my email after signing up for a service I don't continue using that service, as I define that to be user-hostile. If I can't use "+" in an address when signing up I default to GetNada.

The other use case for a PM address is for anonymity (e.g. throwaway/whistleblowing) with a requisite VPN and browser-only login, etc.

As an aside, I use a free Outlook address as my newsletter spam box (good storage size and Android interoperability for consuming content).

Outlook has an amazing feature that allows you to make top level whateveryouwant@outlook.com aliases. Make one for the service, sign up, delete it.

This guards you from spammers stripping the + label, which I’m sure they all do by now.

You can use catchall addresses for this. Any ol email @ that domain that doesn't have an associated account gets routed to the catchall account. Protonmail supports this if you pay, as do a few others.

beware the spam that comes with this... you'll want to block sales@example.com, etc...

I use it as my main email, with a gmail account for throw-away spam, and have the protonmail Android app, I like both the web and android versions quite a bit; could have a few more features, but for everyday usage it is good. No frills but everything normal and easy to use.

Anything in particular that you'd like to see on Android? Would love to get your feedback: https://protonmail.uservoice.com/.

I have used it for my main email account for some years now. The web client is fine, the iOS client is fine, and the ProtonMail Bridge allows me to bring it into my Mail.app.

The encryption is great and the anti-spam works well enough. No complaints.

I have very limited experience. The client seems to log you out once in a while, as if it's a banking app. That's been an annoyance for me. On the free tier, you cannot login to more than one account at a time on the app. That's another annoyance. You cannot export your mails from ProtonMail unless you have a paid account and use a computer with their IMAP bridge software installed.

I can't comment on the iOS client, but the Android client is what's primarily holding me back from switching to Protonmail as my default. The problem is that it keeps logging me out, for one reason or another, and to log back in I have to enter the password and TOTP code. That's a pain in the butt, and it makes it impossible for me to rely on for, say, airplane tickets.

Would you mind sending a ticket to support so we can look into this? https://protonmail.com/support-form

Sure, I can do that again. My previous tedious interaction with your support department ended in this conclusion:

>Sometimes, when the ProtonMail app is updated to a new version and that update is bigger and more incremental, that could happen.

That's unsatisfactory. However it does not address the complaint I had at the time that every once in a while a notification appears that tells me I have been logged out, with no explanation. I don't know if that still happens, as I cannot be bothered to keep logging in on my phone. I'll give it a new try now.

Retrieving that quote for you meant I had to browse my Protonmail archive. I could log in via web, but for some reason your TOTP works differently from everywhere else: I have to enter it every time, and there is no way for me to "remember this browser". I could use the Bridge, but for some reason the Bridge, too, logs me out whenever it feels like it. Again, I have to enter both factors with no option to trust permanently.

Do you see how these paper cuts could demotivate me?

I swapped last year around the end of November. I'm a fan of their filter DSL, which has let me keep my inbox pretty clean. I don't use desktop mail clients so the bridge thing doesn't bother me. Their web ui does just what I want it to, but their ios app doesn't seem to group conversations which is annoying.

Overall 8/10 would recommend.

Conversation view on iOS will be coming soon as well!

I've been using ProtonMail for a couple of years. iOS client is usable and works fine. Web interface works fine with any browser I tried, including on Linux.

I had problems with Bridge on MacOS, but after learning that Apple Mail is reporting all e-mail metadata to Apple I stopped using it altogether. Don't know if ProtonMail fixed Bridge since then.

Definitely make sure to use this, or any email service, with a custom domain. You’ll have to get an appropriate subscription, but it pays for itself thousandfold when changing providers without having to reverse update your entire contact list.

Aside from that, yes I use proton, it’s fine. The Mac bridge is a joke but the rest works ok.

Have you tried the Bridge recently? We've been doing a lot of development there. Last update should fix a bunch of issues.

I use Protonmail regularly on my iPhone. It works.

Not sure about whether it will be around in a decade or not.

I have been using it for more than a year on Android as my primary email in an attempt to leave Gmail. I can recommend. The only issue is when an new email comes in it will group them together and show previously deleted emails in the group.

I use it regularly for both personal and professional use. I now use the pm.me domain for my professional account, since it is easier to share (e.g. phone calls, SMS).

Not my primary mail, but I use it as webmaster email id for some sites & I have noticed that the spam filters have improved a lot.

Works pretty well on iOS and desktop using the bridge. Has been my main account for about a year now.

Yep I swapped to it last year and I've had no problems. Works very well for me.

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