If you are interested in a reasonable level of email privacy — email that is securely stored and not scanned — consider FastMail

If you want end-to-end email encryption — I recommend ProtonMail

Details on Private Email

Almost all of us would prefer our emails to remain private, or at least not routinely scanned by large corporations and government entities. There are email companies (listed below) that provide a service where your email will remain fairly secure and not scanned.

Note, however, that regular email is an inherently insecure medium. This is because email is always sent to someone else — thus releasing them into unknown hands. For example, if you send an email to someone who uses Gmail, your email will scanned by Google and the NSA.

If you want to avoid this situation, you’ll have to encrypt all you emails, and send them to people who also have encrypted email installed (see ProtonMail or Enigmail).

FastMail: Reliable, Private Email

If you want a reliable, independent email service that doesn’t scan your messages like Gmail or Hotmail, I recommend using a provider like FastMail.

Based in Australia, FastMail has been running for 17 years, and they have a good privacy policy regarding email storage. Here’s what they say:

we use encrypted SMTP for sending your mail when the receiving server supports it

we mandate encrypted access for webmail, IMAP and POP

we use Perfect Forward Secrecy where possible for all encrypted connections

we encrypt all email while at rest on our servers

we encrypt communications between our data centers

After testing this service for years, I found this company to be a reliable provider. FastMail has well-designed apps for iOS and Android.

Encrypted Email Providers

If you want more security and anonymity you can opt for an encrypted email provider. These providers offer “end-to-end” email encryption, and the ability to send encrypted email to those who use regular email.

ProtonMail is a reliable encrypted email provider based in Switzerland. Prices start at 48 euros per year (about $56 USD)

Here are similar services that provide end-t0-end encrypted email: