Which free provider lasts longest

The free tiers are more alike than the comparisons suggest. What separates them is runway and the dormancy clock, and neither appears in a feature table.

By the EuroSciCon Guides team✓ Checked against the live interfaceUpdated September 2, 2026

The ten-year question

“Which free provider is best” is the wrong question, because the free tiers are more alike than the comparisons suggest. The question that separates them is which one will still be serving you in ten years, and that comes down to two things nobody puts in a feature table.

Storage runway. Not how much you get, but how fast your actual usage consumes it.
The dormancy clock. Every provider closes unused accounts, and none of them gives the address back.

Runway, not headline figures

Outlook.com: 15 GB reserved for mail. Longest runway by a distance.
Gmail: 15 GB shared with Drive and Photos. Runway depends entirely on photo backup.
Proton and Tuta: about 1 GB. Fine for mail, tight for attachments.
Every provider: roughly two years of silence and the account can go.

Storage runway, which is not storage size

Every comparison lists the allowance. Almost none asks how quickly your usage will eat it, which is the number that actually decides how long the account lasts.

Provider	Allowance	Runway for mail only	Runway with photo backup
Outlook.com	15 GB mail + 5 GB files, separate	A decade or more	Unaffected. Photos use the other allowance
Gmail	15 GB shared three ways	A decade or more	Often under a year
Proton Mail	~1 GB	Several years	Not applicable, no photo service
Tuta	~1 GB	Several years	Not applicable
GMX / mail.com	Large	Effectively unlimited for mail	Not applicable

The two 15 GB figures are not the same 15 GB, and that is the single most useful fact in this comparison. On Outlook.com the allowance is reserved for mail. On Gmail it is shared with Drive and Photos, so a phone syncing pictures competes directly with your inbox for the same space.

The failure is silent when it comes. A full quota means incoming mail is rejected, senders receive a bounce you never see, and the inbox simply stops updating. People diagnose it as a broken account for weeks. The mechanism is spelled out in what a free Gmail account really costs.

Note also that 1 GB is not the constraint it sounds like. Plain text mail is tiny; a decade of correspondence without attachments fits comfortably. Proton and Tuta feel small only if you keep large files in your inbox.

The dormancy clock, which nobody sets a reminder for

Every major provider closes accounts that go unused, typically after around two years, and removes their content. That sounds fair until you notice which accounts are actually at risk.

It is never the daily mailbox. It is the second account you opened for a specific purpose, or the recovery address you registered once and never signed into again. Those are precisely the accounts whose loss does the most damage, because a dead recovery address quietly breaks the recovery path for everything pointing at it.

And no provider gives the address back. Once an address has existed it cannot be recreated by anyone, including you. An account lost to dormancy takes its address permanently, along with any service still using it to reach you.

The fix costs nothing: one calendar reminder a year to sign in to every account you own, including the ones you never use. Almost nobody does it, which is why this is the commonest way a working email setup falls apart years after it was set up correctly.

Permanent, secondary, disposable

Choosing well is easier once you accept you need more than one, and that they have different jobs.

Role	What it is for	What to pick
Permanent	Banking, government, employment, anything you would be in trouble to lose	Outlook.com or Gmail. Longest runway, most stable companies
Secondary	The recovery contact for the first. Different company, deliberately	Proton or Tuta. Small allowance is fine for this job
Disposable	Shops, newsletters, one-off sign-ups	GMX or mail.com. Ad-supported does not matter here

The secondary is the one people get wrong most often, and it is the one doing the most work. Recovery depends on a provider reaching you somewhere else, so an alternate address at the same company is not a spare key, it is the same key cut twice. One outage or one compromised password takes both.

How hard is it to leave again?

Every comparison scores providers on what you get when you arrive. Almost none score the thing that actually traps people, which is what it costs to go. Exit cost is worth more weight than storage size, because storage is a number you can work around and exit cost is a number you only discover when you have already accumulated five years of mail.

What you need to leave cleanly	Why it decides the question
IMAP access	Lets an ordinary mail client copy the whole mailbox to another provider. Without it you are exporting by hand
A full export	Mail, contacts and calendar in standard formats rather than a proprietary archive nothing else reads
Forwarding that stays on	The months afterwards are what matter. Every service you forgot to update mails the old address
Your own domain	The only complete answer. Change provider, keep the address, tell nobody

The first three are widely available and the free tiers differ mainly in how long forwarding keeps working after you stop signing in. The fourth is the one that actually solves it, and it is the reason a custom domain is worth more than any storage allowance on this page: an address you own is portable, and every free address is a rental you can be evicted from.

The practical version: if the account is going to matter in five years, put it on a domain you control. If it is a secondary or disposable address, exit cost is irrelevant and you should pick on convenience instead.

Choosing, in one paragraph

If you take a lot of photos and want one mailbox that never gives trouble, Outlook.com, because the storage separation removes the commonest failure. If you are already inside Google's ecosystem, Gmail, and turn off photo backup on day one. If privacy is the actual priority, Proton or Tuta, accepting that 1 GB means keeping attachments elsewhere. And whichever you pick, open a second one at a different company for recovery, because that is worth more than any difference between the providers themselves.

Sources

Google: Manage your storage in Drive, Gmail & PhotosConfirmation that Gmail's 15 GB is shared across three services.
Microsoft: How to create a new Microsoft accountOutlook.com sign-up, and the rule that addresses are not reused.
Tuta: Support and FAQFree-tier allowance and sign-up conditions.

Frequently asked questions

Which free email provider lasts longest?

Outlook.com, because its 15 GB is reserved for mail alone with a separate 5 GB for cloud files. Gmail's 15 GB is shared with Drive and Photos, so a phone backing up pictures competes with your inbox for the same space and can exhaust it within a year.

Is 1 GB enough for an email account?

For mail, comfortably. Plain text messages are tiny and a decade of correspondence without attachments fits easily in 1 GB. Proton and Tuta feel small only if you keep large files in your inbox rather than storing them elsewhere.

What happens if I stop using an email account?

Most providers close accounts after roughly two years of inactivity and remove their content. The accounts actually at risk are never your daily mailbox but the second one you opened for a purpose, or the recovery address you registered once and never used, which is exactly where the loss does most damage.

Can I get an email address back after the account is closed?

No. No major provider recycles addresses, so one lost to dormancy or deletion cannot be recreated by anyone, including you. Any service still using it to reach you becomes unrecoverable at the same time.

Why should my recovery address be at a different provider?

Because recovery depends on the provider reaching you somewhere the account cannot. Two addresses at the same company are not a spare key, they are the same key cut twice: one outage or one compromised password takes both.

How many email accounts should I have?

Three covers most people. A permanent one for banking, government and employment; a secondary at a different company used mainly as the recovery contact for the first; and a disposable one for shops and newsletters. The secondary is the one that does the most work and gets set up most carelessly.

Why you can trust this guide

Independently written. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any email provider.
No credentials collected. Always sign in on any email provider's own pages, never through a third party.
Checked against the live interface before publishing, and re-checked when it changes.
Last reviewed: September 2, 2026.