What to do if an online company blocks registration with Proton Mail addresses

The vast majority of online services, including all major websites, allow you to use your Proton Mail email address when registering for an account. But we have received reports of some sites rejecting users who try to register with a proton.me address.

This can be very frustrating — like someone telling you the address of the house where you live isn’t legitimate. In this article, we explain this problem and describe some ways you can resolve it.

Why sites block Proton Mail

Proton Mail can sometimes be blocked by accident because we’re not yet as well known as some of the largest email providers. For example, to reduce spam, some forums only allow registration from well-known email providers like Yahoo, Outlook, Gmail, etc. 

Sites may also block Proton Mail domains after experiencing large numbers of registrations from Proton Mail users. But because they’re not aware Proton Mail is a major email service provider with millions of users, they treat the signups as suspicious.

Abuse and fraud rates from Proton Mail are no higher than from unencrypted email providers like Gmail, Yahoo, etc. In fact, statistically speaking, Proton Mail addresses are less likely to be used for spam or abuse than other services because of our stringent anti-abuse measures and because free Proton Mail accounts have limited capabilities and you need a paid plan to fully take advantage of all email features.

Fortunately, incidents of sites disallowing registration using Proton Mail addresses have been decreasing as Proton Mail becomes better known. Today, we are one of the largest email providers in Europe and the largest email company in Switzerland.

How to get Proton Mail unblocked

Obviously, we can’t control what other companies do. But if you do encounter a situation where a company doesn’t allow you to register with your Proton Mail address, here are a few things you can do:

• Write to our support team and let us know what website is blocking Proton Mail email addresses. We’ll contact that service, inform them what Proton Mail is, and ask them to remove the ban.
• We also recommend that you write to the company yourself and explain that Proton Mail is a very popular email provider and that you would like to register with your Proton Mail address. If enough people write to them, we have seen that companies quickly reverse course and allow registration with Proton Mail accounts. (You can use the template email below.)
• If you have a @pm.me address, you can try registering with that as @pm.me addresses don’t usually encounter problems. This shorter version of your Proton Mail address is available to all users on a paid plan. Learn how to set up your short domain email address.
• Another way to resolve the problem is to get a custom domain email address through Proton Mail. Sign up for a Proton Mail paid plan and you can use your own domain in your Proton Mail account (e.g., yourname@yourdomain.com). To upgrade, log in to Proton Mail at mail.proton.me(nieuw venster), click Settings → All settings → Dashboard, and choose your new plan.

How we are resolving this issue

Over the long term, this problem will eventually resolve itself because as Proton Mail continues to grow and more people use Proton Mail, companies will know to accept the Proton Mail email domain. This has already started to happen on its own. For example, some Swiss companies have Proton Mail whitelisted due to the popularity of the address in Switzerland.

In the shorter term, we will continue to reach out to companies to ensure they understand what Proton Mail is and allow Proton Mail addresses to be used for registration.

Thank you for your patience and for helping us spread the word about Proton Mail and online privacy.

Email template to send to websites that block Proton Mail

To: customer support email address
Subject: Unable to register with my Proton Mail email address

Hello,

I would appreciate your help in registering my account with your service. I was unable to use my proton.me email address during the sign-up process.

The block of Proton Mail on your domain must be a mistake. Tens of millions of people globally use Proton Mail, which is a secure email provider based in Switzerland. The company was created by former CERN and MIT scientists to provide easy-to-use encrypted email. I believe it’s important not to discriminate against users who prefer a privacy-focused email service.

Thank you for your assistance.

Best regards,