Mailfence Secure & Private email Reviews 163

I am quite please and impressed with the level of support I was given in my latest encounter with Mailfence. I was having difficulty signing in and Jack personally get me all set up. You won't get that from lots of other email servers as I have run into occasional problems with them. With the other servers, you are on your own. Thanks Mailfence.

I am taking time now (Dec 2025) to review the experience with Mailfence (MF), after 3 months of usage.
I'm subscribed to the ENTRY plan, cause I want IMAP clients (using emClient and Thunderbird on Android and W11) and the ability to work offline. Exchange Activesync is a plus since I like quick sync with all my devices (but... read after).

The price for the service is reasonable, considering you can have aliases for your email, to use for different types of correspondents, and the mail space is ok for me.
Among the positive aspects:
- documentation is complete (though not always up-to-date)
- they have a dashboard for service availability (mfstatus.com)
- you can have different passwords for site access (with 2FA) and SMTP, IMAP, Activesync (for greater security).

But there are several drawbacks to consider, making this service problematic and possibly unreliable!
To mention a few:
1) Activesync: they claim it is supported up to version 14, but I never succeeded using it with Android. My calendar simply does not sync, despite using all possible Andorid apps. They say it's a fault of the client because it does not support "provision" and it's not able to pace message flow, but this is not something I can modify with any app -- simply put, they blame Android apps for the issue, but it's rather their problem
2) Antispam: simply absurd. I had to disable it inbound, or all my email was routed to spam. Then I discovered it is used for outbound as well, and refused to send some of my emails in reply to inbound messages perfectly legitimate. The ticket was closed with this sentence: "There were elements in that email that were flagged by our anti-spam system as phishing. This check cannot be disabled"
I read here that their antispam control are very intrusive, but this is again their problem creating unexpected results (and additional hassle on customers)
3) IP blacklisting! I spent several hours trying to understand why my services were no longer working, then discovered that my IP was blocked because of "too many wrong passwords" and put to blacklist. This can happen when you are setting up different mail clients on different platforms, but there is NO EVIDENCE of the block in the private area, so I had to interact with Support to sort it out

And lastly ... the support is quite unpredictable (at least for my plan).
They say they are real people so they cannot respond immediately, but... the answer may come in minutes or weeks, apparently in random ways.
What if you have a blocking problem?
I totally agree with the comments I read on Trustpilot about them -- answers are polite, but no problem is seriously investigated and the mood is "it's not our problem".

So this is not an AFFORDABLE service as I expected, unfortunately.

PS: I was looking at my private area on their web site, specifically to the characteristics of my account, and this triggered a charge request for a different plan to my credit card... incredible :-(

Will I renew? Hmmmm.
I want an email service which is rock solid, especially if there is a problem (and support is not the best, not even a chat for my plan, only email... and it's a paying plan, not free).

So in the end: it is a functionally complete service (you can even use your own domain, but I did not test this), but
1) lacks Activesync (but you can use xDAV)
2) antispam and IP-blacklisting quite intrusive (the latter not visible at all)
3) support is not predictable nor accurate.
In other words... it's OK for if you don't need any of the above.

These guys are FANTASTIC. It is exceedingly hard to get decent "costumer support' these days & these guys went above & beyond (even though the fault was mise all along). Mailfence is the top 3 email service-providers out there IMO and would recommend it to everyone , especially those who look for an alternative to Google , Yahoo & the likes. Wonderful. Keep up the good job. It must not be an easy job , especially when it comes to putting up with boneheads like myself :)

Moving away from big tech providers, I am greatly satisfied with Mailfence so far. For now I am just using the free offering (might upgrade depending on my needs), but there is already plenty to like - simple and clean webmail, functional Android app, encryption for the mails or even a calendar. This is on top of being able to use a European owned provider (with a European based datacenter) which was also a deciding factor for me. I also want to highlight the support team. Even as a free user, it's possible to get help from them when the existing documentation (quite generous btw) and chatbot aren't enough. And their answer was both swift to come, with a complete explanation and solution offered. I've had worse as a paying customer.

All in all I quite recommend Mailfence, and it should be on your radar if like me you are evaluating european, privacy focused solutions.

I just bought an account and was unable to connect to it using EM Client and Pop Peeper. Support asked me to send my IP address. I did but got no response after that. I tried again to integrate my Mailfence account to EM Client and Pop Peeper and it worked perfectly this time. So I assume they cleared my IP address or something (but forgot to tell me ?). Anyway, I'm satisfied with Mailfence so far.

I’ve been a loyal paying customer for seven years, and I couldn’t be more satisfied with the service. I've tested many privacy like services and stick to MF. In all this time, I’ve encountered no issues—except for the anti-spam filter, which can be a bit aggressive. However, this is easily manageable thanks to the available whitelisting and anti-spam deactivation features in the settings. After all, strict privacy comes with its trade-offs.

What I truly appreciate is their reliability, open protocols support and great customer support. I’ve recommended MF to friends and family, and they’ve all been equally statisfied, whether they use the free or paid services.

Keep up the great work, MF!

Bruce

I’ve used Mailfence for several years. It’s a solid product that I can easily recommend for anyone in the market. Email, calendars, contacts, and cloud storage “just work” without issue.

I was quite disappointed when I encountered an issue with sending emails containing ZIP attachments, especially because I genuinely appreciate Mailfence and consider it a strong, privacy-focused service. The problem turned out to be an overly strict rule on their SMTP servers.
At first, there were some communication issues that made the situation more frustrating than necessary. However, in the past few days Mailfence support identified the cause and fixed it properly.
I’m updating my rating to 4 stars: everything now works as it should, but one star is missing due to the initial difficulties in communication.

This email platform sucks. Sends lots of emails to spam, disables your account if you send a spicy pic of yourself that a person has requested. No warning, just unable to log in. "Private" my aunt fanny. Stick with Gmail or a well-known provider. Hope mailfence dies.

When your account is inactive for a while they lock you out and you're forced to pay a huge amount to get it back. Predatory!

Mailfence is picky with where you can register from - not great for business working across countries.

I really wanted to like Mailfence, but the product is not user friendly. It may make sense to those at Mailfence but apparently not to a lot of their users. Simply put, it needs work. Ex. When I pull all my "Amazon" emails to do a mass deletion. It pulls up all emails from Amazon along with those that do not not have Amazon anywhere mentioned in the email. It will also pull emails that have been filed away in folders that do not mention 'Amazon' on it either. In addition, I thought the alias account would be a God send but nope. My inbox is a train wreck. In theory you should be able to designate a filter for it but that is not as easy as it sounds. Every alias should come with a designate tab to make it easy but no it is a different setting that is confusing. I hate Gmail because I do not feel safe, but Gmail is so easy to maneuver. Now, I get to spend the next year moving everything before it renews. What a pain.

I have used a number of email providers and I love using Mailfence best of all. It was very easy and quick to join and set up. The interface is very clean and simple, yet with enough information at a glance and to use. I especially love the dedication and commitment to user privacy, including its base in Belgium. Its customer service is phenomenal, including for users of free services. They are fast, accurate and always get the job done. What else can I say but Wonderful! Think I'll stay for a while!

Tried to subscribe but they still use 2001 size of mailboxes. There is no subscription that allows me to add a 50gb mailbox. Ok, one business size for 30 dollar per month.

I leave zero if I could. I sent a proposal to client, they closed the account. This was very unprofessional and unreliable I do not recommend their services. Look for someone that is professional and reliable these people are not it!

Their customer service is almost non-existant. When I do get and answer it's irrelevant, incompetent or just rude.
There are too many options and gimmicks and they often don't work or are impossible to comprehend or set.
In fact sometimes they can't even perform the simple task of sending or receiving mail.
They have excuses of course (if they bother to reply) which is always your fault or your problem.
I thought a paid service would be better but I'm not convinced. This company certainly are not convincing me, and they don't care.

I can guarantee that if they reply to this they'll be asking me to 'reach out' to them at their support email address. If only that was the solution and not the problem.

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Update. I've worked out now that if they can't resolve the problem or it's just too hard they ignore you.

I have 2 paid accounts with them and neither are working but there is complete silence.

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I've sent my emails every day for the last week.
Hopeless.

In 2024 we switched to Firefox's Thunderbird. Up until then, we had two hotmail accounts (that is another story).
On the hotmail accounts, we would routinely get 50+ bogus emails a day on each one . That was a pain in the butt. I had to check just in case something proper got snagged. My record for just one of those hotmail accounts was 583 phishing/scams in one day, Microsoft did nothing.

Last summer, we tried the free version of Thunderbird for two months. OMG! Not one bogus email made it to my "mailfence.com" address. Not one bogus email, for two months. There is a free version; pay monthly (cheap, apologies, inexpensive); and a business version, all of which are totally encrypted. How cool is that!

I had two issues with mailfence.com, albeit small ones, and I had answers the next morning. Like the movie said, "this work is smooth and elegant." We switched to the paid version to see what would happen. Surprise, we no longer use those two hotmail accounts and all the related, unresolved issues.
Mailfence.com, isn't that a cool handle.

Mailfence assured me they had deleted my credit card details, but then months later a charge was put through for renewal of the service. It was declined because I have to contact my financial institution ahead of time to have a hold lifted for international charges. They did not activate the proper place in my account for me to renew, and every time I asked for help and explained the problem, I received an email threatening to cancel my account if I did not pay, even though I told them repeatedly that there was no way given in my portal to renew my current plan. They also denied that they had my account details, which is not correct because they only way a charge would be put through and then declined is if they had it in their system. After receiving replies that repeatedly ignored my questions and the information I was giving them, and continuing to receive emails from them threatening the termination of my service, I found a way to add money to the account, but not to specify that it be allocated toward the renewal. Unbeknownst to me, and without communicating with me, they then reactivated the renewal place in my portal (red flashing dot on the bell) and put a second charge through, which I only discovered when I called my financial institution. When I emailed them again, they again ignored all the information I provided and simply said they had run the card that was on file. There is also nowhere in your portal to see what date you are paid up until; you have only your receipts, and if you "renew" through adding money to your account, as I described, it does not record the "paid up by" date on the receipt. In short, they cause problems by not listening to what you tell them and not helping with what you ask, and then fail to help you resolve the problems that their failure to listen caused. A very frustrating experience that is not yet resolved, and that was 100% preventable if only one person had listened when I tried to be heard and then followed up to ensure I got everything sorted. I noticed that they follow up with comments to the negative reviews here, but the bigger issue is that they know they have problems with their customer service and they continue to operate with disregard for what their customers are telling them.

Update- a senior executive at MailFence (the owner?) finally responded to my emails to support, saying he wanted to help and offering me a video meeting. When he logged on, it was apparent that he had no intention of listening to me or resolving anything. He had not read my emails to support, was openly hostile, and seemed unsure what the issue was. When I started to explain, he cut me off repeatedly. Being polite did not get a positive result, nor did multiple firm statements of “It’s my turn to talk.” He refused to let me to finish any thought, deliberately talking over me, and became increasingly aggressive to the point where I had a PTSD trauma flashback on the call. He was still ranting when I disconnected.

MF then put the wrong account back on the free plan (I had two accounts and the one was still on a paid plan), making it impossible to send or receive emails because of the number of emails in that account (you can only have a certain number in a free account), or even to contact support from it. They eventually corrected this with no apology.

I am done giving this company any more of my money. They give nice-sounding responses to the negative reviews on here on Trust Pilot, but my experience with them has revealed serious problems at the highest level of the organization. If a company does not exhibit a basic level of customer service and respect for the customer, then I cannot trust them with my emails. Based on my experiences with them, I am certain they do not care about resolving issues and I believe they still do not understand what the problem was. They are only invested in getting customers to leave them alone, and they are willing to be emotionally abusive to accomplish that goal.

was excited to find a company that offered some privacy and security compared to the likes of google. chose the free option and been using it for a while now. gave it a three because 1) emails mailfence choose as spam, are never accepted to go into the inbox even if i add them to the address book or reply, 2) when i add addresses to my address book, i can't access it to change or delete except to click on a ramdom address inside an email, 3) when i delete an email from my inbox, it doesn't always just delete but waits till i close it to disappear, 4) the account doesn't stay open but i have to relog in every session, 5) there is no help option in the account, 6) even though there is a download option, it doesn't work and lastly, 7) it arbitrarily just closes, even if i'm checking my mail and i have to re-login. had high hopes but starting to see if there are other options. dissappointing.

was closing another email so have been forwarding to this account. never realized how much mail i had until i started forwarding because it filled up my inbox very fast.

Alan from the mailfence support team was very fast to response and resolved the short domain problem.

Impressed.

Regards
CP Singapore