It’s easier to tame your inbox when emails are pre-sorted into categories like primary, social, promotions, or newsletters. Now you can cut through the noise while protecting your privacy with Proton Mail Categories.
This optional new feature gives you one more way to stay organized in Proton Mail — you can already add folders and labels, unsubscribe from newsletters with one click, and set up automated filters. With Categories, your messages get sorted automatically before clutter gets a chance to take over.
Not on Proton Mail yet? Create a free account.
What are Categories in Proton Mail?
Categories are a new view in your Proton Mail inbox designed to give you better visibility of which messages need your attention. Every incoming email lands in one of these categories:
- Primary: For personal and work messages, plus important updates and notifications
- Social: Updates from social media platforms and activity
- Promotions: Deals, discount codes, and holiday sales
- Newsletters: Non-promotional content and news you signed up for
- Transactions: Bookings, billings, and orders
- Updates: Automated confirmations and alerts
For new users, Categories are on by default, but you can turn them off in your settings. If you already have a Proton Mail account, we’ll ask whether you want to turn Categories on. You can customize your experience by choosing the categories you want to see.
If an email lands in the wrong category, just move it to a new one. This automatically updates the filter for next time.
Stay organized, without the surveillance
Big Tech email providers like Gmail and Outlook also give you categories, but there’s a privacy cost.
For companies like Google and Microsoft, their goal isn’t to keep you secure and private, it’s to monetize your attention with ads or train their AI models. Google even displays ads in your inbox, turning your Promotions and Social tabs into a billboard for marketers. Even if you pay for Google One, it doesn’t change the business model. Google is an advertising surveillance machine.
Proton’s business model aligns our incentives with yours because we’re 100% funded by our community, not by advertisers. Enabling Categories doesn’t change any of this. Your inbox remains protected by zero-access encryption, and emails you send with other Proton users (or using password protection) are end-to-end encrypted.
See what a clean inbox feels like
Ready to use Categories? Go to your inbox and open your emails from the Primary, Social, Promotions, or Newsletters tabs. You can easily move emails if you feel another category is more appropriate.
For customization, go to Settings → Messages and composing to choose which categories to display, toggle notifications, or show an unread count. If you prefer the old Proton Mail view, you can disable categories anytime. Find out more about using Categories.
Not on Proton Mail yet? Create a free account.
