Get started with the Proton Scribe writing assistant
Proton Scribe is a privacy-first writing assistant built into Proton Mail that helps you compose and improve your emails. You can run Scribe on dedicated servers or locally on your device so that your data never enters the cloud.
- Who can use Proton Scribe?
- How to get started with Proton Scribe
- Should you use the writing assistant locally, or server-side?
- How to generate a new email
- How to improve an existing draft
- How to purchase Proton Scribe
- How to control who gets access to Proton Scribe
- How to cancel your Proton Scribe add-on
- How to disable Proton Scribe
- How to send feedback about generated emails
- How Proton Scribe protects your privacy
- Frequently asked questions
Who can use Proton Scribe?
Proton Scribe is included for free with Proton Duo, Family, Visionary, and Lifetime plans and as a paid add-on from $2.99 per user monthly for anyone on our Proton business plans. Additionally, anyone with a paid Proton plan can try it for free for 14 days.
Proton Scribe can help you draft emails in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, and Japanese. We will look into adding support for more languages in the future.
How to get started with Proton Scribe
To get started, open your composer in the Proton Mail web or desktop app, and click the pencil icon. If you don’t see it, make sure the writing assistant is enabled in the Messages and composing settings. If you’re a business user, make sure that your organization admin gives you access.
Should you use the writing assistant on-device or server-side?
The first time you launch the writing assistant, you’ll be invited to choose whether you’d prefer to run it on your device or on dedicated servers.
For most people, we recommend using the model server-side, as it doesn’t require powerful hardware to generate email drafts quickly. However, if you are dealing with sensitive data or if sophisticated server attacks are part of your threat model, you may prefer to run the model on-device to keep your data on site. Note that running the model on-device only lets you draft emails in English.
For more information, read: How Proton Scribe protects your privacy.
Your hardware requirements are automatically checked to ensure your device can run Proton Scribe locally. Scribe will inform you if you can only run it server-side.
System requirements
You need at least 4 GB of storage space available to download the model the first time you use it. It won’t work in incognito mode, as not enough local storage is available.
macOS
- CPU: M-series chip
- 8 GB RAM
- Chromium-based browser or the Proton Mail desktop app
Windows
- CPU: Intel Core 7th generation, or AMD Ryzen 1000 series
- Dedicated GPU with 6 GB of VRAM and FP16 capability, such as a Nvidia RTX 2060 or AMD RX 5500 XT
- 8 GB RAM
- Chromium-based browser. Support for the Proton Mail desktop app will come at a later date.
How to generate a new email
Once you choose your preferred way of using the writing assistant, you’ll notice new buttons below your subject line. This is where you can ask the assistant to write or proofread an email. Simply click “Help me write” and type a prompt. For example, you might type: “Write a cover letter for an engineering job”.
You will see the writing assistant generate a reply. If you’re happy with the results, click Insert to make it your draft. Be sure to check for accuracy, as the assistant is only a writing aid and may not always have correct details. If you’d like to add more details to your prompt, you can edit it to regenerate a new draft. You don’t have to wait until a draft is generated — you can stop the process at any moment by clicking the cross button.
How to improve an existing draft
You can use the writing assistant to help you improve an existing email draft by proofreading it, shortening it, expanding it, and making it more formal or friendly.
To do so, open an existing draft and click the pencil icon at the bottom left of the composer.
Improve the entire draft by clicking the desired action above the text area (Proofread, Expand, or Shorten). Note that the Formalize and Make it friendly options can be accessed by clicking the (…) button.
- To improve a specific part of your draft, select the sentence you’d like to improve and click the desired action above the text area. Or be more specific by entering a prompt or instruction in the Modify selection field. Note that the part of the draft you selected to improve will be replaced.
You can improve a draft multiple times until you’re happy with the result. You can then click the Insert button to make this your new draft.
How to purchase Proton Scribe
Proton Scribe is included for free with Proton Duo, Family, Visionary, and Lifetime plans.
If you’re using a Proton Mail business plan (Mail Essentials, Mail Professional, and Proton Business Suite), it is available as a add-on that’s paid per user.
Organization admins and members get access to a free trial of Proton Scribe for 14 days. The trial starts as soon as you click the pencil icon in the composer.
If you’d like to purchase Proton Scribe after your trial, you can do so from your account dashboard(new window).
Click Customize plan to edit your subscription and give your team access to the Proton Scribe writing assistant. Choose how many users should get access under Proton Scribe writing assistant and proceed to payment.
How to control who gets access to Proton Scribe
As an organization admin, you may want to control who gets access to Proton Scribe in your organization. To do so, visit the Users and addresses settings.
From there, click Edit next to the user you would like to grant access to the writing assistant.
You can then toggle the Writing assistant switch to grant or remove access.
How to cancel your Proton Scribe add-on
You can adjust the number of seats for the writing assistant add-on at any time in your dashboard under Customize plan. See How to purchase Proton Scribe for more details.
If you’d like to cancel the add-on for your whole organization, visit the Users and addresses settings, click Edit next to each user, and revoke their access with the Writing assistant toggle. Then go to your Dashboard and edit your subscription to set the Proton Scribe writing assistant to zero users.
How to disable Proton Scribe
If you don’t want to use Proton Scribe, you may want to disable it fully to hide it from your composer. You can just click the settings icon and disable Proton Scribe in the right side menu.
How to send feedback about generated emails
If you’ve asked Proton Scribe to write an email and you’d like to submit feedback regarding the output, you can do so using the thumbs up or down button.
To help us improve the accuracy of generated emails, tick the checkbox to include the prompt and the response you got in the next screen. Click Submit to finish sending your feedback.
How Proton Scribe protects your privacy
Proton Scribe offers a unique approach with its privacy-first design. It relies on an open source large language model that you can run locally on your device for maximum privacy, if your device and browser meet the system requirements. This ensures your prompts and generated email drafts never leave your device until you send the email, which will be end-to-end encrypted if sent to another Proton or PGP user or zero-access encrypted on our servers if not.
You also have the option to run it on Proton Scribe’s secure, no-logs servers for even faster email creation. Your prompts and the generated emails will be encrypted in transit, immediately discarded once you’re done, and not used for any kind of model training.
You’re always in control of your data. You choose who on your team gets access to Proton Scribe, and you can always review and revise Scribe outputs before sending any email. If you don’t need help to write emails, you can hide the Scribe button from your composer permanently. See: How to disable Proton Scribe
Frequently asked questions
Why is it slow to generate emails?
If you choose to use the writing assistant locally, its speed will depend on your hardware configuration (see the system requirements above). Your hardware will be checked the first time you try to use the writing assistant locally. If your hardware doesn’t meet the minimum requirements, you won’t be able to download the LLM.
If you are still experiencing slow performance, you may be running out of memory. Closing unused programs, browser tabs, or restarting your computer can help free up memory. Note that if you’re not actively using Proton Scribe, we’ll unload it from your memory to avoid impacting your other applications.
How can I remove the local LLM from my computer?
If you choose to run the writing assistant locally, a LLM will be downloaded to your device to answer your queries. At the time of writing this article, it is 3.8 GB. If you no longer use Proton Scribe, you may want to remove it to free up space.
To do so, you need to delete it from your browser’s local storage. With a Chromium-based browser such as Chrome, you can do so from Settings → Privacy and security → Third-party cookies → See all site data and permissions.
You can then click the trash icon next to proton.me. You may need to log in again to your Proton account after deleting the model from your local storage.