I switched from Gmail to Proton Mail and my inbox was a disaster

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

Given this, Proton Mail emerges as an alternative focused on privacy. I’ve always been hesitant to make the switch, as I’ve used Gmail for years. But then I saw I was able to transfer my Gmail address to Proton, so I finally decided to try the security-focused email app.

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

Proton has made it easy transfer your Gmail to Proton Mail. No complex configuration or forwarding required; you simply need to use the transfer tool to link your Gmail address. Since my primary Gmail address is a lost cause, I decided to use Proton with my secondary address that has my most important work-related emails.

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

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

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

While Gmail has been criticized for reducing your free storage For some accounts, the reduced 5GB quota is still significantly higher than Proton’s. Since my Gmail account has been established for a long time, it has the old free quota of 15 GB. Currently, it occupies 7.3 GB.

As expected, Proton ran out of storage during the import process. Fortunately, it stopped 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 seriously managed storage in Gmail or upgraded to a paid Proton plan.

However, 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 newsletter and mailing list trackers.

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

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

In Gmail, my emails are categorized into Home, 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 main inbox.

This meant I received a lot more notifications on my phone for unimportant emails. By default, Proton Mail includes an Important label, but there’s no way to customize it when you receive push label notifications. The barrage of notifications I received caused me to miss important emails, including appointment reminders.

Email threads also proved to be an overwhelming problem. 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 specialty pharmacy emails me every month to arrange payment and delivery of my migraine medications. It always has the same title (the name of my medication), but it refers to a different order each month.

Gmail recognizes that these emails are different conversations each month and only chain direct responses. But Proton groups all emails related to this topic. The current thread dates back to October 2025. But it also had threads with 100+ emails or more.

Proton allows you to turn off conversation grouping, but doing so removes threads entirely. So either you have to deal with large groups of similar emails that are part of different conversations, or you don’t have any emails chained together.

When it comes to controlling a chaotic inbox, you can replicate Gmail tabs using folders and labels in Proton Mail. Setting up folders also allows you to customize your notifications, but it’s a very hands-off approach and free accounts have a limited set of folders and filters. I couldn’t use the shortcut to create filters as Proton would create a separate filter for each sender, so I was 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 am on the mailing list of dozens of companies, this manual setup is not ideal and becomes an immense waste of time.

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

Proton Mail has potential, but right now its sorting features aren’t ready for all the overhead my existing email addresses bring. I value greater privacy and recognize that sometimes this comes at the cost of comfort. I’ve already stepped away from several Google services over the past year, including switch to Proton password manager and get rid of Google Keep.

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

If I switch to Proton, I can start from scratch and change the email for my most important accounts. I have considered a Proton subscription, but it is out of reach of my strict budget due to an unfavorable exchange rate.

Proton Mail has a clean user interface and useful organizational features. However, limited free storage and filtering restrictions can make the switch difficult 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 those of Gmail.