Leaving Gmail in 2026: 6 Serious Alternatives (And the One We're Building)

Let's be upfront with you: we're building Maylee, a new email client. So yes, we're judge and jury. But before coding Maylee, we spent months studying what's already out there. Rather than hide that, we turned it into a guide.

This article won't pitch you Maylee in every paragraph. It will introduce 6 serious alternatives to Gmail in 2026, with their strengths and limits as publicly documented. At the end, we briefly talk about Maylee, and you decide for yourself.

Gmail is an excellent product used by over a billion people. But several concrete reasons push users to look elsewhere:

Shared storage. Gmail's 15 GB free tier is shared between Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos. If you use Photos to back up your pictures, your inbox is subject to the same limit.

Privacy. Google announced in 2017 that it no longer uses email content to personalize ads. But the Google ecosystem is still built around contextual data collection, which raises questions for privacy-conscious users.

The advertising model. Gmail displays promotional banners in the Promotions and Social tabs of free accounts.

Ecosystem dependency. Leaving Gmail also raises the question of the other Google services tied to it (Drive, Calendar, Contacts, Photos).

If you recognize yourself in at least one of these points, here are your options.

Leaving Gmail feels scary because you've accumulated so much there: years of archives, contacts, filters, labels, and most importantly an email address everyone knows. The good news: the migration is technically simple. The real challenge is the organization.

Here are the concrete steps to migrate without losing your data.

Before touching anything, list:

• Your archive volume: how many GB? (Google account settings → Storage)

• Your contacts: how many in Google Contacts?

• Your filters and labels: how many have you set up?

• Your calendars: how many Google Calendars do you use?

• Third-party services connected to Gmail: OAuth connections (Notion, Slack, Zapier…), critical sign-ups (bank, professional services)

That last list is the most important. It's what determines how long your transition will actually take.

Two possible strategies:

Strategy A: keep your Gmail address as a "relay." Create a new address with Proton, Tuta, or Fastmail. Enable automatic forwarding in Gmail (Settings → Forwarding and POP/IMAP) so new emails arrive at your new address. Stop giving out your Gmail to anyone, but the old address keeps working during the transition.

Upside: zero risk of missing an email while you update your accounts. Downside: you stay dependent on Google during this period.

Strategy B: cut ties cleanly. Announce your new address to your contacts, update your critical accounts, then close your Gmail.

Upside: fast transition. Downside: high risk of missing an email from a service you forgot about.

Recommendation: start with Strategy A for several months, then switch to Strategy B once your list of critical accounts is cleaned up.

Google provides an official export tool: Google Takeout (takeout.google.com).

• Select Gmail

• Choose the MBOX format

• Launch the export (Google generates a downloadable archive, sometimes split into multiple files depending on size)

You can also export your contacts and calendars in parallel via Takeout, or directly from:

• Contacts: contacts.google.com → Export

• Calendars: calendar.google.com → Settings → Export

Depending on the alternative you choose:

• Proton Mail offers Easy Switch, an official tool that imports emails, contacts, and calendars from Gmail directly (no need to go through Takeout)

• Tuta allows imports via .eml files (which you'd extract from the MBOX Takeout archive)

• Fastmail has a built-in Gmail migration assistant in its interface

• Apple Mail can connect to your Gmail via IMAP and import your archives gradually that way

Check the exact procedure on your new provider's official documentation these tools evolve regularly.

This is the longest step. Do it in order of priority:

1. Financial accounts: bank, investment platforms, PayPal, Stripe for professionals

2. Identity and admin: taxes, social security, health insurance, utility providers

3. Critical professional accounts: LinkedIn, GitHub, your hosting provider, your key SaaS tools

4. Social networks and subscriptions: streaming, news, recurring services

5. Everything else: all those sites you signed up for once and forgot

Tip: your Gmail contains the history of all your sign-ups. Searching from:noreply or welcome in Gmail gives you a good chunk of the list of services to update.

Before permanently closing your Gmail:

• Enable 2FA on your new email service

• Set up an auto-reply in Gmail for several months to inform senders of your new address

• Download one final full backup via Google Takeout and store it on an external drive just in case

• Update the recovery emails on all your accounts (sites often use a secondary email for password recovery)

Note: if you close your Google account, keep a transition period during which your Gmail stays active but unused. This protects you if you discover a forgotten service that tries to email your old address.

The positioning: end-to-end encrypted email service, based in Switzerland, created by former CERN researchers.

What's included in the free plan:

• 500 MB of storage on signup, up to 1 GB after completing onboarding tasks

• An additional 5 GB on Proton Drive

• End-to-end encryption enabled by default

• One free email address

• Web, iOS, Android, and desktop apps

Documented strengths:

• End-to-end encryption by default

• Open-source code, independently audited

• Swiss jurisdiction with its data protection laws

• No ads, no tracking

Free plan limitations:

• No IMAP/SMTP access (Proton Bridge is reserved for paid plans)

• Modest storage if you receive lots of attachments

Best for: people who want truly private email and are willing to accept some constraints in exchange.

The positioning: Microsoft's free email service, integrated into the Microsoft 365 ecosystem.

What's included in the free plan:

• 15 GB of email storage

• Built-in calendar, contacts, and task management

• Lightweight web versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint

• Web, Windows, macOS, iOS, Android apps

Documented strengths:

• Native integration with Microsoft 365 (if you use it)

• Focused Inbox to separate important emails

• Two-factor authentication

Limitations:

• Some advanced features require a Microsoft 365 subscription

• Some advertising elements present in the free version

Best for: professionals already using Microsoft 365, or anyone looking for a mainstream alternative to Gmail.

The positioning: email service integrated with iCloud, pre-installed on every Apple device.

What's included:

• 5 GB of free storage (shared with iCloud Drive and backups)

• Hide My Email to generate random aliases (with iCloud+)

• Mail Privacy Protection, which blocks tracking pixels

• Native sync across all Apple devices

Strengths:

• Perfect integration in the Apple ecosystem

• Privacy features by default

• No ads

Limitations:

• 5 GB shared with all of iCloud fills up quickly if you sync photos and backups

• Basic web interface

• Little value if you're not in the Apple ecosystem

Best for: users exclusively on iPhone/iPad/Mac who want something that just works.

The positioning: cross-platform email client by Readdle that connects to your existing Gmail/Outlook/iCloud account.

What's included in the free plan:

• Smart Inbox that prioritizes emails

• AI features for writing and summarizing

• Multi-account support

• macOS, iOS, Android, Windows apps

Strengths:

• Polished, modern design

• Reads Gmail/Outlook without requiring migration

• Smart Notifications limited to important emails

Limitations:

• Some advanced features (team collaboration, premium AI) on paid plans

Best for: people who want to keep their Gmail address but improve the interface and experience.

The positioning: encrypted email service based in Germany, open-source alternative to Proton Mail.

What's included in the free plan:

• Limited storage (check tuta.com for up-to-date numbers)

• End-to-end encryption, including email subjects

• Encrypted calendar included

• Web, iOS, Android, desktop apps

Strengths:

• 100% open-source codebase

• GDPR compliant (based in Germany)

• Encrypts more metadata than Proton (subjects included)

Limitations:

• No IMAP/POP support, even on paid plans you're locked into their app

• Smaller user base

Best for: open-source purists and European users who care about GDPR compliance.

The positioning: paid email service from Basecamp, designed to break traditional inbox habits.

What's offered:

• Original "Imbox / Feed / Paper Trail" sorting system

• Filter new senders before they appear in your main inbox

• No ads, no tracking

• Pricing: starting at $99/year (check hey.com for current pricing)

Strengths:

• A fundamentally different approach — forces you to rethink your habits

• Designed by the Basecamp/37signals team, known for their strong design choices

Limitations:

• No free plan

• Rigid approach: you adopt their method or you don't

• Fewer integrations with other tools

Best for: people who really want to change their relationship with email and are willing to pay for it.

We end with the same transparency we started with.

Maylee is an email client we're building right now. It's not yet publicly available you can join the waitlist at maylee.app.

Why we're building Maylee: because none of the tools above offered what we were looking for an email client that learns your personal writing style to draft replies on your behalf, that automatically categorizes incoming emails without you having to create a single rule, and that takes into account the ecological footprint of your inbox.

That last point is what really sets us apart. None of the 6 tools above addresses the carbon footprint of email. Yet every email sent and stored consumes energy multiplied by the billions of emails exchanged daily, that's a real impact. Maylee is, to our knowledge, the first email client to natively integrate an eco mode.

What we're preparing:

• Auto-Reply (on the Expert plan) can send replies entirely on its own, based on a confidence score the AI assigns itself for users who want to go beyond drafts

• Magic Reply learns your personal tone to draft responses that sound like you, not like generic AI

• AI Labels automatically categorize incoming emails (Urgent, Price Request, Meeting…) without you needing to create a single rule. An email can receive multiple labels at once

• Smart Views organize by project, by client, or by sender domain not just by account or folder

• Eco Mode 🌱 automatically deletes sent emails based on your rules: after sending, after a defined delay, or once the recipient has replied. Less data stored, less energy consumed