How Many Free Accounts Can Someone Create?

Hi,

I would like to know if there are limited number of free accounts can someone create, and if so, what that limit is.

Also, if a household has multiple members, and each create a free account but using a single device, or even multiple, would that consider to be in violation of their terms?

UPDATE: Let me add this on top as I feel like it's necessary to clarify one thing resoundingly before anything else:

PortonMail does NOT allow more than one free account for each individual.

Does it sometime tolerate users create more than one free account even if they find out about them? Yes.

But it doesn't change the fact that they reserve the right, through their TOS, to suspend/delete all those free accounts, even if you have used them for legitimate reasons. So ask yourself, do you feel you cannot afford losing those extra free accounts of yours, or are you OK with having them getting suspended and not being able to access them at some point. If the answer is the former, you might be at risk losing them, otherwise, do as you wish.

With that out of the way, here's what happened in my case:

I managed to secure all my accounts, but also wanted to share with whoever ends up here what the rules are and how to deal with the suspended accounts.

First and foremost, based on several answers I received by PortonMail staff, it is clear that their policy prohibits usage/registering of multiple "free" accounts. One is the max you are allowed to register. So if you see post on Reddit (even in this thread) talking about multiple free accounts are allowed, that is NOT true. You might be getting away with it by using VPN or some other tricks, but officially, you are not allowed to have more than one free account. I posted what I received from the support below as requested to clarify any ambiguity.

Please note that your accounts have been subjected to our anti-abuse algorithm which is targeting multiple accounts created in succession or by a single user.

From the Terms of Service you have agreed to upon sign up, you may already know that we disallow multiple account creation or bulk sign-up and since this is not an acceptable use of our service your accounts have been suspended accordingly*.*

We had several reasons to implement this measure, but we aim to protect Proton Mail's reputation and prevent our IP from being banned by the third-party services users usually sign up for with the multiple accounts they create on our service, which will risk the availability of said services for the rest of our users.

https://proton.me/legal/terms

Second, in my case, the initial contact I had with the support team, they asked me to provide the purpose behind using each of the suspended free accounts. I was honest about it and explained that they all belong to me and were being used for legitimate reasons (provided description of what each account was being used). You could be dishonest and claim that each email belongs to a family member, and you all use a single machine, etc, but that's up to you. I rather be forthcoming about my actions.

We have noticed that your account was flagged and disabled by our automatic anti-abuse system. Would you please inform us of any other accounts you may have created on our service, along with their intended purposes, so we can try to further assist you with your inquiry?

They explained what they can do for me is to reinstate those suspended free accounts, and give me 48 hours to sort things out. Beyond that, accounts would be permanently suspended. In this 48 hours, I could only receive emails, but not send any (read-only access basically), which was more than I needed.

In your case, we are offering our assistance, but regretfully, as a result of the violation done against our terms, we can only help you in restoring one of your accounts. As for the other accounts, we can offer to temporarily restore them for the following 48 hours, with read-only access, so you may gather the data contained.

If you agree with our solution, confirm with us by stating to which account you wish to be fully restored and which accounts you wish to receive read-only access, and we will help.

I used the time to create several new aliases with my paid account and re-registered what I needed with the re-enabled accounts to switch to the new alias addresses. After that, those accounts got permanently locked up (I don't think you can reuse the usernames to register an account with. In other word, those usernames are forever taken on a suspended account).

They allowed one of my free account to continue operating without suspension, however, since I had an unlimited plan, what I did was to ask them to merge/combine that free account with my paid one. For that, they send the email asking for confirmation to that free, or merging, account, and you have to confirm that request. After that affirmation, your account is deleted (you will lose all your emails, so if you want to save/send any content, do it before making this request), at which point, you can recreate it as an alias in your paid account.

All in all, ProtonMail demands and process were fair, and the support was very helpful to resolve this issue.