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’re 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 for a limited amount of time, meaning your account can be inactive up to a period of 24 consecutive months before the effects of this policy apply. This extended grace period of 24 months will cease to apply from April 9, 2026.

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.

As of April 9, 2024, we’ll begin enforcing systematically the inactive account policy outlined here.

Frequently asked questions

Can I recover my email address after it was deactivated? Can someone else take it over?

In principle, deactivated email addresses are not recycled for the following reasons:

• Protecting 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.
• Managing our resources, as offering free email addresses that are never used is unsustainable.

However, recycling of email addresses may be performed by Proton after assessing on a case-by-case basis that the recycling does not conflict with the reasons listed above. Truly previously active accounts which become inactive are generally not recycled.

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.