Free email accounts are many, but some stand out among the rest. This article discusses the best free email accounts and their features.
- Gmail
- Outlook.com
- Yahoo Mail
- Yandex Mail
- ProtonMail
- iCloud Mail
Gmail
That Gmail is the best free email account is no surprise. Google’s free email service is sleek, well-integrated, and spam-free.
It also allows you to snooze emails, schedule emails to be sent later, and read mail offline. Emails can also expire and require a unique code to open, be stored in a 15 GB vault, shared via Drive, undone, and have vacation responses set up.
Gmail is now more tightly integrated with Google’s other products, thanks to Google Workspace. Workspace allows you to share files and hold virtual meetings. It works with Meet’s picture-in-picture feature so you can see and hear others while writing or reading emails.
You can change the look of Gmail’s interface, access advanced settings, create filters and labels, import emails from other accounts, and use a chat client. Gadgets (add-ons) extend Gmail’s functionality.
Outlook.com
Microsoft’s free email service, Outlook.com, has a similar user-friendly interface to Gmail. It’s easily second to Google’s service, if not tied.
When you right-click an email, you can move, delete, or search for all emails from that sender.
Outlook supports mail rules, allowing you to automatically move new messages to a folder, categorize, flag, or forward them. You can also use add-ons like PayPal and DocuSign to connect directly to Skype via email.
Yahoo Mail
Yahoo Mail is notable for giving new users 1 TB of free email storage.
The compose window is similar to Gmail, with one useful difference: switching between inline image and file attachments is quick.
This is probably the best email service for aliases. You can create anonymous Yahoo addresses linked to your inbox. This feature is useful when signing up for accounts and you don’t want your regular inbox spammed.
You can also import contacts from a file on your computer or other accounts like Facebook or Outlook, and use themes to change the website’s background and color scheme. You can also attach files from Google Drive or Dropbox, use the online calendar, and connect external accounts to manage email from one place.
Yandex Mail
Yandex is a Russian company that offers free email accounts, 10 GB of cloud storage, and a search engine. Like Google, your Yandex.Mail email account allows you to log into multiple services.
It has a nice look. It’s simple to read and maintains all necessary tools. This service supports email filters, contact importing and exporting, tasks, and hotkeys.
But it’s also one of the best because it’s so unique. You can easily forward multiple messages as file attachments. The part after @ can be your website domain name, and delayed messaging is supported (for free).
ProtonMail
ProtonMail is unique among email services because it focuses on email encryption. The idea is that you can send mail without worrying about ProtonMail or anyone else reading it.
All ProtonMail messages are encrypted. Otherwise, click that button first before emailing a non-ProtonMail user. If you encrypt a message, you can specify an expiration time for it to be destroyed and unreadable.
There is a maximum expiration time of four weeks (28 days), but you can choose 1 to 23 hours. If you send a message to a non-ProtonMail user, the message expires in 28 days.
Encrypted emails are opened by clicking a link that asks for the password, decrypting it and displaying it in the browser. They can reply using the same message they decrypted without a ProtonMail account.
In addition, Link Confirmation protects against phishing attacks by allowing you to confirm a link’s destination before clicking it.
iCloud Mail
Many people are unaware they are only a few steps away from having iCloud Mail. So it’s one of the better providers: It’s usually set up in seconds.
It’s free for anyone with an Apple ID, and it’s not just for Apple products. A free iCloud ID allows access to iCloud Mail on any computer.
After creating an account, you can access your mail, notes, reminders, photos, iCloud Drive content, contacts, calendar events, and anything else synced to iCloud from your iOS device.
iCloud’s email service isn’t very advanced and doesn’t offer many options. It’s easy to set up, and you don’t have to add your name or choose a password. Any Apple ID or free iCloud account will do.
Large file attachment support (up to 5 gigabytes via Mail Drop) and a two-click method to unsubscribe from unwanted emails are all included.