Imagine you need a free email account, an account that is separate from your main email account.
Perhaps you want a new email account for online purchases. Or for subscribing to email newsletters.
Or maybe, you’ve never had an email account.
Whatever the reason, setting up a free email account with an email service should be straightforward, right?
Not lately.
What’s Changed with Email Services?
What I’ve noticed over the past few years is email services now ask for a phone number for verification. Likely due to the amount of spam email we all receive.
But asking for a phone number can create a barrier.
Services like Google or Zoho ask for a unique phone number to be associated with the account.
But if you already have an account with them and have used your phone number, you may not be able to associate a new email account with the same phone number.
In some cases, services only allow smartphones to be used for that unique phone number so you can be texted for verification.
What happens when you don’t have another phone number to use for verification?
Limited Email Services
If you want to create a free email account and don’t have a unique phone number for verification, there are choices.
Sadly, there aren’t a lot of choices for someone who:
- Doesn’t want to, or can’t, provide a phone number
- Wants to protect their privacy
I researched online for services that fit both criteria, and I’ve found some options to consider.
Note: I researched the options this month (June 2019) and all were available without phone verification.
But policies often change, so be aware of possible future changes.
Free Email Services That Don’t Require Phone Verification
ProtonMail
Based in Switzerland, ProtonMail is my recommended choice for an additional email account.
Why?
In addition to not requiring you to provide a phone number for verification, ProtonMail is a privacy-focused email service. They can provide encryption of your messages.
Signing up for your ProtonMail account is a three-step process, which takes less than a minute.
- Choose your username and domain (either protonmail.com or protonmail.ch)
- Create a password
- Optionally add a recovery email address (if you need to recover your account)
You don’t have to enter your name to get a ProtonMail account.
Pros:
- Quick to set up
- Privacy focused
- 500MB storage
- 150 messages a day
- Create encrypted and automatic expiring email messages
- iOS and Android apps available, along with browser access
Cons:
- No additional features other than email
- No recovery options, other than your optional recovery email account
- Limited storage. A premium account will get you more storage, filters, labels, usage of your own domain name.
Mail.com
A free email service owned by 1&1 Mail & Media Inc., Mail.com offers a more feature-filled free email account.
Their data center is based in Kansas in the United States.
Signing up for a free account requires you to enter your first name, last name, country, state (if applicable), security question, password, and your method of verification.
In less than a couple minutes, you’ll have a new email account.
Note: the default verification method is SMS, but the second option is email. So you must have an existing email account if you don’t want to use phone verification.
Pros:
- Manage multiple accounts
- 2GB of storage
- Choose from over 200 unique domain names (example: consultant.com, mail.com, accountant.com, etc.)
- Send large files up to 50MB
- Spam filter and virus protection
- Online calendar
- Available on smartphone, tablet, or desktop computer
Cons:
- You must have an existing email account for verification. The only verification options are email or SMS.
- Ads will be displayed. You can opt out, but in some cases, opting out is based on device you’re using. If you upgrade to their premium service, no ads will be shown.
- Depending on your email usage, you may need more space.
Wrapping Up
In the past, it was a lot easier to create a free email account without having to provide a phone number. Not so any more.
Of the two options, I recommend ProtonMail if you’re looking for an email service that focuses on your privacy and doesn’t ask a lot of questions when you sign up.
Mail.com is a good choice if you’re looking for more features (calendar, more storage, etc.), while providing more information about yourself during signup.
