I tried switching from Gmail to Proton Mail for a week — and my inbox was a disaster

While Gmail is the dominant email service around the world, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have flaws. Gmail has long been criticized for its lack of privacy and for including ads. More recently, the integration of Gemini in Gmail inboxes has become another point of contention.

In light of this, Proton Mail has emerged as a privacy-focused alternative. I have always been hesitant to make the switch, since I’ve been using Gmail for years. But then I saw I could transfer my Gmail address to Proton, so I finally decided to try out the security-focused email app.

Was the switch worth it? Well, that’s where things get complicated.

Transferring my Gmail to Proton was simple

Proton has made it easy to transfer your Gmail to Proton Mail. It doesn’t require complex configuration or forwarding; you simply need to use the transfer tool to link your Gmail address. Since my primary Gmail address is a bit of a lost cause, I decided to use Proton with my secondary address that has my more important, work-related emails.

I set up a new free Proton account since my existing account is linked to my primary Gmail account. Once I set up a new Proton account, I received an email from Proton that let me easily link my Gmail account.

Not only could I receive emails from my Gmail inbox in Proton, but I could also send emails from my Gmail address using the app. Emails even included the same signature as my Gmail address.

However, some challenges became apparent quickly. The transfer tool imports emails from Gmail, which can easily take up the limited free storage you get with Proton. Initially, you get 500MB free. If you download the mobile app, you get a total of 1GB free.

While Gmail has been under fire for reducing its free storage for some accounts, the reduced 5GB quota is still significantly larger than Proton’s. Since my Gmail account is long-established, it has the old 15GB free quota. Currently, it takes up 7.3GB.

As expected, Proton ran out of storage during the import process. Luckily, it paused this import at around 800MB, so I could receive new emails. However, it was clear that I wouldn’t have access to my long email history unless I did some serious storage management in Gmail or upgraded to a paid Proton plan.

Nevertheless, using Gmail with Proton comes with certain benefits. For example, you don’t get those annoying sponsored emails that Gmail inserts into your inbox. There are no intrusive prompts to use Gemini in your inbox. Proton Mail also blocks trackers from newsletters and mailing lists.

The service also includes end-to-end and zero-access encryption, so the company cannot read or access your emails. From a privacy standpoint, Proton’s benefits are clear.

However, organizing my emails was not

While Proton Mail has a clean interface, my unfiltered emails quickly became a source of clutter and notification fatigue. I’ve grown used to Gmail’s email organization, which lets you be relatively hands-off when sifting out important emails from mailing lists.

In Gmail, my emails are sorted into Primary, Promotions, Social, and Updates tabs. Newsletters and promotions occasionally end up in my main tab, but most are filtered out. In Proton Mail, all of these emails appeared in my primary inbox.

This meant that I received far more notifications on my phone for unimportant emails. By default, Proton Mail includes an Important label, but no way to customize when you receive push notifications for labels. The flurry of notifications I received meant I missed important emails, including appointment reminders.

Email threads also proved to be an overwhelming issue. Proton groups emails from the same sender, with the same title, within the same thread — even if those emails are sent months apart. This makes it extremely difficult to scroll through conversations to find specific emails, especially on the mobile app. For example, my specialist pharmacy sends me an email every month to organize payment and delivery of my migraine meds. It always has the same title — the name of my medication — but it references a different order each month.

Gmail recognizes that these emails are different conversations each month, and only threads together direct replies. But Proton groups every email related to this topic. The current thread spanned back to October 2025. But I also had threads with over 100 emails or more.

Proton lets you turn off conversation grouping, but doing so eliminates threads entirely. So either you have to deal with large groups of similar emails that are part of different conversations, or you have no threaded emails at all.

When it comes to controlling a chaotic inbox, you can replicate Gmail’s tabs by using folders and labels in Proton Mail. Setting up folders also allows you to customize your notifications, but it’s a very hands-on approach, and free accounts have a limited set of folders and filters. I couldn’t use the shortcut for creating filters, since Proton would create a separate filter for each sender, so I automatically moved to a folder.

Instead, I needed to go into my account settings and add a filter with multiple email addresses to move these messages to the designated folder. Since I’m on the mailing list for dozens of companies, this manual setup isn’t ideal and becomes an immense time sink.

If I switch to Proton, I’d rather start from scratch

Transferring my Gmail to Proton seemed like a great idea, until it brought all its baggage along with it. My Gmail account has been around for years, so it’s linked to dozens of accounts. My primary Gmail account, which has existed for 20 years, is even worse.

Proton Mail has potential, but right now its sorting features aren’t ready for all the bloat my existing email addresses bring. I do value increased privacy and recognize that sometimes this comes at the cost of convenience. I’ve already moved away from several Google services over the past year, including switching to Proton’s password manager and ditching Google Keep.

I already deal with so much spam and data tracking that I don’t want even more ads in my email. And repeatedly dismissing the prompt to use Gemini in Gmail is growing on my nerves. So I definitely see the appeal of switching to a different service.

If I do switch to Proton, I may just start from scratch instead, changing the email for my most important accounts. I’ve considered a Proton subscription, but it’s out of reach for my strict budget due to an unfavorable exchange rate.

Proton Mail has a clean UI and useful organizational features. However, the limited free storage and filter restrictions may make it a difficult switch for Gmail users who haven’t strictly managed their email over the years. But we may reach a point where these drawbacks don’t seem so insurmountable compared to Gmail’s.