Best Gmail alternatives for all users | UniOne

Gmail is the world’s most popular mailbox service. It has dominated the market because of a combination of most desired features, including ample storage space, an intuitive user interface, and advanced security.

Email was invented in 1971, and Gmail emerged over three decades later. In a few years it usurped the market to gather over 1.8 billion active users. However, as suitable as it is for most users, there are still many Gmail alternatives you can choose from. We don’t hold any grudge against Gmail, but it’s good to know there’s competition in the email market.

This article will highlight the best Gmail alternatives for different types of users.

The best alternatives to Gmail

There are many reasons why you might want an alternative to Gmail. You could be looking for a platform offering more storage. You could be after a mail client with more focus on security. You might just want to keep your eggs in more than one basket by having multiple inboxes.

There are many alternatives to choose from depending on your demands. But as you find one, don’t abandon your old email address right away. After creating an account, we advise you to:

1. Notify your important contacts about the new mail address you’ll use to communicate with them.
2. Update your online accounts to be linked to your new email address.
3. Set up email forwarding from old addresses to your new one, if necessary.
4. Avoid using the new address to sign up for unnecessary promotional offers, which can lead to significant spam.

A good Gmail alternative for Microsoft users

Microsoft Outlook, formerly Hotmail, is one of the best Gmail alternatives, especially for people who are already using the Microsoft ecosystem and want to continue with it for their mail. However, its name is a bit misleading: the company also offers an email client and personal information management software under the exact same name as part of its Microsoft 365 suite. Here, we are talking about the free online email service, available at Outlook.com.

Microsoft Outlook

Pros:

• It’s well-integrated with other Microsoft tools.
• It’s free to use.
• The app has an intuitive interface.

Cons:

• The free version has ads.
• Its anti-spam features aren’t as good as those of Gmail.

Outlook has been around since 1996, nearly a decade before Gmail started. It was originally known as Hotmail and went through several rebrands before settling on Outlook in 2013.

Outlook is a free personal email service anyone can use. There’s also a paid version under the same mane accessible via a Microsoft 365 subscription.

Like any other mailbox service, Outlook allows you to create a unique address ending with @outlook.com, @hotmail.com, @live.com, or @msn.com. Users of the enterprise version can create email addresses attached to custom domains.

Outlook includes ads by default, and you’ll have to pay for a premium subscription to remove the ads. However, it doesn’t scan your email content to show targeted ads.

One good thing about Outlook is that you can sign into your account without entering your password. Instead, you request a one-time code to a linked phone number or email address. This feature is useful if you want to access your Outlook account from a public computer, e.g., at a library: you won’t have to type your mail password on a possibly insecure PC.

Other core features of Outlook include:

• An integrated calendar.
• Desktop and mobile apps, including a low-resource Lite app for Android phones.
• Advanced search capabilities.
• Advanced email encryption.

A Gmail alternative for more storage space

Storage is a major consideration when choosing an email service. You need enough space to keep all your messages and attachments. Gmail offers 15 GB of free storage space, and you must purchase a Google One or Google Workspace subscription for anything above this figure.

Yahoo Mail is one of the best Gmail alternatives with regard to storage space as it offers 1 TB of free storage, much more than you’d find on most other mail providers.

Yahoo Mail

Pros:

• A high amount of cloud storage.
• Intuitive interface.
• Instant chat.

Cons:

• The free version shows a lot of advertisements.
• Many advanced features are locked behind the premium subscription.

Yahoo Mail is a very popular email service with over 200 million users worldwide. Its key feature is 1 TB (yes, one terabyte!) of free storage, over 60 times of what you’d get with Gmail.

This mailbox service is free for personal use, and you can pay a monthly fee to remove advertisements and access more advanced features. For instance, premium users can create temporary email addresses and set up auto-forwarding to external addresses. The premium subscription also increases the allotted mail storage space to 5 TB.

Yahoo Mail is easy to use. You can head to the website or download the mobile app and immediately create an email account. Available email addresses end in @yahoo.com or @myyahoo.com. After creating your email address, you can use it to send and receive messages seamlessly.

This app makes it easy to organize your messages. It has advanced search capabilities to help you easily sift through emails. You can access all your attachments in one place, which makes them easy to find.

Other notable Yahoo Mail features include:

• One-tap unsubscribe.
• Customizable notifications.
• Sophisticated spam filters.

Gmail alternatives for advanced security

While Gmail has built-in security, it may be insufficient for some people. Privacy-conscious users are wary of handling sensitive emails on clients like Gmail that might process their data for targeting ads and other purposes.

Proton Mail

One of the best alternatives to Gmail regarding security is Proton Mail. This mailbox service was built with a primary focus on security, offering end-to-end encryption for its users. The tradeoff is that you must pay to access most features, unlike Gmail. But as the popular quote goes, “If you’re not paying, then you’re the product.”

Pros:

• End-to-end encryption.
• You can password-protect specific emails.
• Access to many complementary features, like a calendar and secure cloud storage.

Cons:

• Paid plan is required to access most features.

Proton Mail is the most popular secure email solution available. The service offers a web based client and dedicated mobile apps, and can also be accessed via Tor network.

This mail service uses end-to-end encryption (E2EE) by default. E2EE is a secure communication technique preventing third parties from snooping on the message on its entire way from the sender to the recipient. The email is encrypted on the client side, even before it reaches the server. Proton Mail itself can not access your email contents, unlike Gmail and other popular services.

End-to-end encryption will work even if the recipient’s email client doesn’t support it. In that case, the recipient will receive a link to your message, which can be opened using a password you’ve sent to them previously via another communication channel. There's also an option to auto-destroy a message after a given period of time.

Proton Mail offers a free plan with limited features: just 1 email address, 1 GB of storage, and a maximum of 150 outgoing messages daily. You need a paid plan to enjoy most of its features, starting from $12.99 monthly.

Alongside emailing, a Proton Mail subscription also gives you access to:

• Secure cloud storage.
• A secure calendar app.
• A password manager app.
• A virtual private network (VPN) app.

PrivateMail

Pros:

• Advanced encryption.
• The app has an intuitive interface.

Cons:

• No free plan.

PrivateMail is another popular secure Gmail alternative. It gives users access to encrypted email and cloud storage. This app has end-to-end encryption, and you can send self-destructing emails that are automatically deleted after a specified period.

A notable drawback of PrivateMail is that there’s no free plan, so your only option is to subscribe for a paid plan. The amount of allocated storage depends on how much you pay; you can get between 10 and 100 GB of storage.

PrivateMail lets users create alias email addresses for temporary use. The basic plan is limited to five aliases, and the higher plans let you create up to 20. You can upload and host files securely and share them with other users. Cloud storage uses the Advanced Encryption Standard 256 (AES-256) algorithm to protect files; this algorithm uses 256-bit keys to encrypt content, making it virtually unbreakable.

PrivateMail is accessible from a web browser, or you can download the native app for Android, iOS, and Windows. It has a simple interface that makes it easy to navigate the app’s features.

Gmail alternatives for Apple users

Apple is one of the most recognized smartphone and computer manufacturers. Many people use iPhones, iPads, or Macs and prefer to stay within the Apple hardware and software ecosystem. For these, Apple offers a native email client called iCloud Mail.

Note that iCloud Mail is different from Apple Mail. iCloud Mail is a standalone email client, while Apple Mail is an app that lets you manage email addresses created on different clients.

iCloud Mail

Pros:

• Free to use.
• Intuitive interface.

Cons:

• Limited storage space for free users

iCloud is Apple’s popular cloud storage service, and iCloud Mail is an email platform built atop this service. You can create an account to start sending and receiving emails using a simple email client. Even though this service is free, it doesn’t show advertisements like other free alternatives.

Email storage on this client is tied to your iCloud account. Apple gives all users 5 GB of free storage, and you can choose a paid plan to get extra space. Apple offers different plans, allocating up to 2 TB of storage per user.

Email addresses on this platform end with @iCloud.com. If you’re subscribed to a paid iCloud plan, you can use a custom email domain. You can also generate random email addresses as aliases for your main inbox.

The iCloud Mail app has an intuitive interface that makes it very easy to use. The interface is minimal and uncluttered, with features arranged neatly across the dashboard. You can access iCloud Mail via a web browser or mobile app.

This email app has sophisticated security features to keep your account safe. You can turn on two-factor authentication to ensure no one breaks into your account. The service also has advanced anti-spam features to prevent you from interacting with harmful messages.

OnMail

Pros:

• Free to use.
• The app has a sleek user interface.

Cons:

• Native app is only available on iOS.

OnMail is another solid Gmail alternative for Apple device owners. This email app offers a sleek, modern interface, the type that Apple users are familiar with. It was built from scratch with an intuitive design in mind. The dashboard is responsive and easy to navigate.

Like most other free services, OnMail offers basic email management features. You can access it from a web browser or download the iOS app.

OnMail is free but with a catch. It harvests data from email users by default, which its parent company sells to earn revenue. The data is anonymized, so you don’t need to worry about anything being traced back to you. However, many people might not be comfortable with such an arrangement, and, fortunately, OnMail allows users to opt out of this data sharing.

OnMail gives you a stellar user interface that allows you to send and receive emails with ease.

A Gmail alternative for Windows PC users

Windows is the world’s most popular desktop operating system. Gmail has a native Windows app, but some users want alternatives. Zoho Mail is one of the best Gmail alternatives for Windows users.

Zoho Mail

Pros:

• Extensive feature set.
• Widespread compatibility.
• Excellent customer support.

Cons:

• The user interface needs improvement.

Zoho is an Indian company known for building low-cost alternatives to popular software tools. It offers one of the best alternatives to Gmail you can choose.

You can create an account anytime and get an email address ending with @Zohomail.com. Creating an email account is free, but you need a paid plan to access advanced features like custom domains.

Zoho Mail has advanced security features to protect your emails from prying eyes. You can enable two-factor authentication to prevent unauthorized access to your account. The app encrypts emails with 256-bit keys that are virtually impenetrable by brute force.

Zoho offers more than just email. It gives users access to a suite of apps, just like Google. You can use the Zoho calendar to manage your schedule, the Contacts app to store and manage your contacts, the Tasks app to manage your to-do list, etc.

This app keeps all your mail attachments in one spot, making it easy to sort and find the one you want. You can preview attachments before hitting the send button to ensure you send them correctly.

Zoho has excellent platform support. You can access it online or download the Zoho Mail app for Windows, macOS, or Linux desktop. It’s also available for iOS and Android smartphones.

The slight drawback of Zoho Mail is its interface. You’ll likely need some time to get used to it because it feels overwhelming to a first-time user. It’s not as intuitive as other email clients like iCloud Mail or Yahoo Mail.

More Gmail alternatives worth mentioning

We can’t dive too deep into Gmail alternatives, lest we bore you. Below is a quick summary of other alternatives to note:

• Tuta: A secure, end-to-end encrypted email app. It has a free version that gives access to 1 GB of storage. You can upgrade to the paid plan to access up to 500 GB of storage and create multiple email addresses, including custom domains.
• Mailfence: Another secure, end-to-end encrypted email service. It’s ideal for privacy-conscious users who don’t want to be tracked in any form. The free version gives access to just 1 GB of email and cloud storage, but you can upgrade to a paid plan with up to 225 GB.
• AOL Mail: A popular free email service. Free users get 250 GB of storage, making it one of the best Gmail alternatives for storing messages for the long term. This platform has advanced anti-spam protection features, is available in 54 languages, and includes built-in spell checking tools.
• 10-Minute Mail: A disposable email service which lets you create email addresses lasting for only 10 minutes. You can extend the time for up to 100 minutes to receive emails at your temporary address. This app only lets you receive messages; you can’t send messages from it.

What is the best Gmail alternative?

All in all, we consider Yahoo Mail the best Gmail alternative. It gives users 1 TB of free storage space, more than 60x of what Gmail offers. Yahoo Mail has an intuitive interface that makes the app easy to navigate. You can access it from a web browser or download the native app on iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS.

The main drawback of Yahoo Mail is that some important features are locked behind the premium subscription, such as auto-forwarding and alias addresses, whereas Gmail offers most features for free.