Signal still beats encrypted email: Proton Mail and Tuta can’t solve its biggest flaw

Encrypted email has moved back into the conversation in 2025. Proton Mail and Tuta both offer end-to-end encryption by default, and Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo Mail still don’t.

Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo Mail usually encrypt messages in transit and at rest, but they keep the keys themselves. That means those providers can still access the contents if they’re compelled to. With real end-to-end encryption, only you and the recipient can read the message. Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo have generally put account security, spam filtering, and compatibility ahead of maximum privacy.

If you want email that’s actually private, switching providers makes sense. Still, the market isn’t exactly stable. Tuta says it has more than 10 million users and is working on post-quantum cryptography and encrypted cloud storage. Skiff, which reportedly had nearly 2 million users, shut down after Notion acquired it in February 2024.

Email’s open, federated design also makes key exchange, identity checks, and PGP much harder to deal with than they are in Signal or WhatsApp. So even with estimates putting the encrypted email market at more than $9 billion in 2025, and end-to-end encryption at about 35%, messaging apps are still the better option for highly sensitive conversations.

You can get encrypted email through Proton Mail or Tuta on the web and on mobile.