Inactive accounts
On April 9, 2024, our updated inactive account policy came into effect for everyone on a Proton Free plan.
What happens when you’re inactive
If you have a Proton Account on a Free plan that has been inactive for one year (12 consecutive months) or more, your account and all data associated with it (including but not limited to emails, contacts, calendars, and files stored in the cloud) may be deleted.
If you have been inactive on all Proton services for one year, we will give you advance notice 30 days, 15 days, and 7 days before your account is deleted.
You can always avoid having your account removed by:
- Logging in to any Proton service on our web, desktop, or mobile apps
- Upgrading to a paid Proton plan
If you have a paid Proton plan and you are current with your subscription payments, your account is considered active. If you had a Proton Account before April 9, 2024, you will receive an additional one-year grace period, meaning you have until April 9, 2026 to log in to your account.
How to stay active on these products
You are considered active if you log in and use our services once a year. Simply logging in to any Proton service on our web, desktop, or mobile apps at least once a year is enough.
If you are already logged in, you should use one of our products at least once a year (for example, access your inbox, read an email, connect to a VPN server, etc.).
Activity is considered by account, not by email address. Keeping an active account ensures that any email addresses you created for that account (@proton.me, @pm.me, etc.) also remain active.
When does this inactive account policy go into effect?
In our terms and conditions, we have always reserved the right to deactivate inactive free accounts after one year, but we never enforced this policy.
As of April 9, 2024, we will begin enforcing the inactive account policy outlined here. If you had a Proton Account before April 9, 2024, you will receive an additional one-year grace period, meaning you have until April 9, 2026 to log in to your account.
Frequently asked questions
Can someone else take over my email address after it was deactivated?
No. For example: You’re on a Proton Free plan and your email address is alice@proton.me. If your Proton Mail account is inactive for 12 months or longer, we may deactivate it. This means you will no longer be able to access your account. No one will be able to use alice@proton.me either.
I don’t know if I can stay active once every year. What should I do?
We understand that sometimes events can keep you away from your devices for an extended time. That’s why we set a one-year period before your account is considered inactive instead of the original three-month period we had in Proton’s terms and conditions.
If you don’t think you’ll be able to log in to your account at least once a year, please contact our Support team and we’d be happy to assist you.
Why can’t I reclaim my email after it was deactivated?
When offering new email domains such as @proton.me, in the interest of our users, we want to:
- Ensure that a diverse choice of email addresses is available.
- Protect our users by preventing different people from sharing the same username on different domains. For example, there should never be 2 different users owning john.smith@proton.me and john.smith@protonmail.com. This helps prevent impersonation attempts.
- Manage our resources, as offering free email addresses that are never used is unsustainable.
To guarantee the above, we now enforce this inactive accounts policy and prevent the reactivation of existing addresses.