Inactive accounts
- Leitura
- 3 min
If you’re on a Proton Free plan, your account must stay active to avoid deletion. To keep your account active, sign in to Proton and use one of our services at least once a year.
Our inactive account policy does not apply to paid plans. If you’re on a paid subscription, we’ll never delete your account due to inactivity.
- How to keep your account active
- What happens if you’ve been inactive for more than 12 months
- What happens if your account is deleted
- Can I recover my email address after deletion?
- What if I can’t sign in once a year?
How to keep your account active
Sign in to your Proton Account and use it at least once a year.
- You can sign in to any Proton service, on any web, mobile, or desktop app, using any email address associated with your account.
- Perform a simple action like opening an email, viewing a file, or connecting to a VPN server.
This will keep your account, data, and all associated addresses active.
If you’ve been inactive for more than 12 months, your account could be deleted
We’ll send you reminder emails 30 days, 15 days, and 7 days before your account is scheduled for deletion.
If you created your account before April 9, 2024, you have a 24-month grace period instead of 12 months. This extended grace period will cease to apply from April 9, 2026.
If your account is deleted
All data associated with it will be permanently removed in line with our terms and conditions. This includes emails, contacts, calendars, passwords, and files.
Can I recover my email address after deletion?
In most cases, no. Deleted email addresses generally can’t be recovered or assigned to a new account. This helps prevent impersonation attempts, or the same username existing on different accounts (for example, eric.norbert@proton.me and eric.norbert@protonmail.com).
In rare cases, we may be able to reassign an address if we can confirm that it won’t cause one of these issues.
What if I can’t sign in once a year?
We understand that life sometimes gets in the way. If you don’t think you’ll be able to sign in at least once a year, contact our support team and we’ll try our best to help.