Proton Mail has launched a new 'Categories' inbox view that automatically sorts incoming email into six groups: Primary, Social, Promotions, Newsletters, Transactions, and Updates. Unlike Gmail, which scans email content to power its tabs, Proton sorts mail using metadata alone, preserving its zero-access encryption. The feature is opt-in via a dialog prompt, with Primary always active and other categories toggleable in settings. Users can manually move emails between categories, and Proton will remember the preference for similar future emails. Separately, Proton plans to bring on-device full-content search to its mobile apps in the coming weeks, letting users search email bodies without the search touching Proton's servers.
Questions this post answers
How does Proton Mail sort emails into categories without reading their content?
Proton Mail's new Categories feature sorts incoming email into six groups (Primary, Social, Promotions, Newsletters, Transactions, Updates) using metadata alone, rather than scanning message content like Gmail or Outlook do. This preserves Proton's zero-access encryption, which keeps email content unreadable even to Proton itself. Users can manually move an email to a different category via right-click or drag-and-drop, and future similar emails get sorted the same way automatically. Track how privacy-first tools like Proton Mail keep matching mainstream features without new tradeoffs, daily.dev included.
Which Proton Mail email category cannot be disabled?
The Primary category cannot be disabled in Proton Mail's new Categories inbox view. It always stays active and catches any emails that need attention, plus messages from any other category a user has turned off. The remaining categories, Social, Promotions, Newsletters, Transactions, and Updates, can each be toggled on or off individually from the Email categories settings page. Developers weighing email client features for privacy-focused stacks can follow updates like this on daily.dev.
Is Proton Mail adding full-content email search on mobile?
Yes, Proton is bringing full-content search to Proton Mail's mobile apps in the coming weeks, allowing users to search the actual body text of emails rather than just subjects and senders. Proton states this search will run entirely on the user's device instead of querying its own servers, keeping the search consistent with its zero-access encryption model. Keep tabs on privacy-preserving search features across email tools like Proton Mail via daily.dev.