Using Proton services with external email addresses

You can now sign up for Proton Drive, Proton VPN(new window), Proton Pass, and Proton Wallet with your own email address.

While we recommend creating a @proton.me email address to fully protect more of your online data, anyone who can’t switch email services can still securely browse the internet with Proton VPN and save and share files with Proton Drive while using your current email address.

Using an external email address will not allow to access some Proton services, including Proton Mail and Proton Calendar.

To protect your privacy with all of Proton’s services, including Proton Mail and Proton Calendar, you must set up a Proton Account by creating a Proton Mail email address.

How to sign up for Proton Drive using an external email address

Signing up is easy and only takes a few minutes. To sign up with an external email address:

1 Go to the Proton sign-up page in a web browser on your computer.

2. Choose Use your current email instead.

3. Enter your current email address in the Email field.

4. In the Password field, enter a password at least eight characters long and type the password in again to confirm.

5. Click Create account.

6. Choose Continue with Free to create your free Proton Drive account (or select a paid plan if you would like to get extra features and support our mission).

7. If you’re asked to confirm you’re human(new window), tick the I am human box and follow the instructions. Or you can choose Email or SMS to verify you’re human that way.
(Note that if you enter your email or mobile phone number, we only save a cryptographic hash of this personal data. It’s impossible to derive your phone number or email from that hash, and it’s not permanently associated with the account that you create.)

8. Enter an optional display name. This is what people will see when you share a file. Click Next.

9. Enter an optional phone number that you can use to recover your account(new window) if you ever forget or lose your password.

10. Click Save selected or Maybe later, and you’re done!