The security and privacy of your online correspondence should always be a priority, but they’re particularly essential when sharing sensitive information regarding your medical history.

To ensure patient privacy, any entity that handles medical information online must adhere to the standards laid out in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, or 

. Before using ProtonMail to share any medical information, 

you should familiarize yourself with the email provider’s policies and standard procedures for handling user data.

What encryption protocol does this provider rely on for data security?

What other encrypted email provider might be a more secure 

Skiff supports zero-knowledge encryption for ultimate privacy.

Leave no room for compromises.

ProtonMail and HIPAA—What is HIPAA compliance?

Compliance with HIPAA means adhering to the various rules laid out in this piece of legislation. While all HIPAA guidelines are essential for proper patient treatment, 

—Determines which medical data is considered Protected Health Information (PHI) and establishes when PHI can be shared with third parties

—Sets standards for how entities store and share patient data in physical and digital formats

Here’s a breakdown of the different entities that should be compliant with HIPAA:

According to the Security Rule, covered entities must ensure their emails are reasonably secure in transit, and both covered entities and recipients must use secure email inboxes. In practice, this means using email providers with sufficient encryption.

Email providers like ProtonMail are considered 

When a healthcare organization shares PHI via email and wants to be HIPAA-compliant, it must sign a 

 with the email provider. This contract determines the precise responsibilities of the provider.

ProtonMail and business associate agreements

Before sending or receiving PHI via email, a healthcare organization must sign a business associate agreement with ProtonMail to ensure HIPAA compliance. To expedite the process, 

Proton offers a blank BAA template on its website.

After filling out the document, healthcare organizations should send it to 

. Once ProtonMail confirms the BAA, the basic standards of the Privacy Rule have been satisfied.

, which costs a minimum of $6.49 per user per month. You can’t sign a BAA with a free account, limiting its HIPAA compliance to 

the ProtonMail BAA only partially ensures the email provider’s compliance with HIPAA. 

To be fully HIPAA compliant, ProtonMail must also provide effective email encryption.

For a detailed breakdown of the encryption and privacy practices in place, check out this 

Never with Skiff. Encrypt your emails, documents, and calendar entries.

Data leaks can cause serious harm.

Is ProtonMail end-to-end encryption HIPAA compliant?

HIPAA’s guidelines on email security are somewhat vague—the legislation doesn’t explicitly prescribe the need for email encryption, instead categorizing it as an “addressable” security measure.

HIPAA compliance requires encryption if there’s no alternative security method 

providing an equal level of protection. Since encryption is the industry standard for email security, this kind of protection is necessary in practice.

ProtonMail’s security complies with HIPAA standards thanks to its 

 that protects emails before they reach the server.

While Proton’s encryption is undoubtedly strong, it’s not the safest option for your confidential messages because it

—Pretty Good Privacy (PGP). This protocol brings

For a platform that takes a more modern approach to E2EE, check out 

—a security-oriented email provider and an excellent avenue for sharing sensitive data online. Unlike Proton, Skiff Mail doesn’t lock any security features behind a paid subscription. 

All users get the same level of protection.

Skiff Mail—Device-based E2EE at no cost

 that provides device-based E2EE to all users, creating a shield for sensitive messages at all stages of data exchange. The platform uses a set of keys to protect emails on user devices before uploading them to any server:

—Shared among Skiff users and used to encrypt the message

—Mathematically linked to the public key and stored on the user device

Thanks to Skiff’s encryption, unauthorized third parties, including Skiff, can never read your emails. Only the sender and intended recipient can access messages sent via the platform. Most importantly, 

 without any action necessary on your part.

Besides encryption, the platform ensures security and 

 via zero-knowledge logins and two-factor authentication. Some of the many other useful Skiff Mail features include:

 for easier organization and more privacy

A powerful search function that lets you quickly scan email conversations for specific info

Streamlined, modern UI with email folders and labels

—you can view the platform’s entire source code on 

. For more details on Skiff’s security measures, check out this 

Skiff provides three other E2EE productivity tools to all users entirely free of charge:

Consult the table below for brief descriptions of each Skiff tool:

Share confidential emails securely with Skiff Mail

To start using Skiff Mail for your private correspondence, follow these three simple steps:

Explore the entire Skiff productivity suite

 apps, which sync with your browser-based work in real-time. 

The free Skiff plan provides access to all tools and features

, while the affordable paid plans unlock more 

Is ProtonMail HIPAA compliant?

Various businesses and individuals send heaps of unsolicited messages each year—both offline and online. From coupon booklets and catalogs to fraudulent letters, 

. It’s annoying, environmentally unfriendly, and sometimes even dangerous.

While blocking all spam is impossible, this guide will show you how to stop junk mail from entering your digital and physical inbox. You’ll learn how to:

Use online aliases to secure your email address

With its security-first approach, Skiff Mail prevents spam from ever reaching your inbox

Make your account impenetrable

How do I stop receiving junk mail at home?

Most junk mail comes from marketers. To help consumers stop these unsolicited letters, 

. Once you sign up, you can choose which type of prospect letters you don’t want to receive—including magazine offers and other promotional mail.

The service has a symbolic price of $4 for a 10-year license, which you can pay via PayPal or credit card on the DMA website. There’s also the option of mailing the payment with a physical form, which you have to print and fill out first.

enter up to five variations of your name and address 

to ensure misspellings don’t lead to a failed detection.

While DMAchoice will stop most business marketers from sending you junk mail, you’ll need another service to 

block offers from credit card companies and insurance providers

These organizations often send letters with “prescreened” offers based on information from your credit report.

By law, the major credit report companies need to provide consumers with a way to opt out of these offers—the 

How to get off junk mail lists with financial companies

To opt out of credit-based junk mail, follow these steps:

Keep in mind that there’s no way to permanently opt out of financial junk mail online. For a permanent solution, you’ll have to print out the 

, fill it out, and send it to the designated address.

Besides your full name and address, OptOutPrescreen will ask you to provide your date of birth and Social Security number. This information isn’t obligatory, but it may help OptOutPrescreen block junk mail from more senders. If you’re not comfortable sharing such sensitive info online, 

you can register with your name and address only

How to stop unwanted mail delivery online

 can also be dangerous. Based on their senders and purpose, we can differentiate between 

 that automatically block most junk mail, but 

even a single malicious message could result in considerable losses. 

Hackers use spam to steal personal and financial data through phishing scams, often impersonating legitimate senders.

While there’s no way to block spam or phishing attempts completely, you can use the following techniques to 

When spam is detected, most email platforms move the email to Spam, Junk, or a 

, depending on your settings. After a message spends a certain amount of time there, your email provider will delete it automatically. 

, junk mail is deleted after 30 days, while 

You can delete a junk email manually before the deadline. The process is similar on most email platforms—you enter the spam section and either remove specific emails or empty the entire folder.

To delete spam in Gmail, follow these steps:

In Outlook, you can delete junk mail via the following steps:

The process of deleting individual messages is identical to Gmail’s—there’s a 

option in the top ribbon above any selected email.

If you’ve accidentally deleted an email and need to retrieve it, these guides break down the process in 

While email platforms automatically block spam, reporting any junk mail that slips through is still crucial. The filters used by many modern email providers are based on

machine learning, and they adapt to new information. When you report a message as spam, platforms like Gmail and Outlook take note and block similar emails or senders in the future.

To report spam in Gmail, follow these steps:

Access the questionable message from your 

If you’re getting more junk mail than usual, 

your email address has probably entered the spammers’ database

. In that case, they might have shared your address with other dubious organizations and individuals spamming you.

The only way to prevent this is to be careful where you leave your email address—a difficult advice to follow, considering the number of services and websites we sign up for with our emails daily.

An email alias is an excellent way to make your email address more private.

 There are several notable benefits of using it:

 you can use to register online without your actual email

The alias forwards all emails to your real inbox, so you won’t miss anything

If you notice it’s forwarding spam, all you have to do is delete the burner account

Many mainstream email platforms don’t support email aliases

, and the ones that do, like Google, lock the feature behind a paywall. Only premium Gmail users can create an alias from the Google Workspace Admin Console.

The easiest way to protect your email address with an alias is to find a free platform that gives access to the feature. 

A few security-minded email providers enable aliases at no charge

—one of which you’ll learn about later in this guide.

Can’t see your forwarded emails? You may have archived them. These guides show you how to find archived and 

If you repeatedly receive spam from a single address, you can block that contact to 

. Unfortunately, hackers have ways of getting around these blocks. They use bots that automatically create new addresses and keep spamming, but 

blocking a sender can still be effective if they’re sending messages manually

The process works similarly on most mainstream email platforms. In Outlook and Gmail,

Click the Block option in the top ribbon above the email

Blocking spammers may also help your spam filters detect other junk mail with more precision. Once you block a spammer, the email platform may recognize a pattern and block similar senders.

How to stop junk mail—All questions answered

Perhaps you want to tidy up your inbox and remove some of the conversations you no longer need from the sent folder. If this is the case, you will be happy to know the answer is “yes”—you can delete sent emails in no more than a few clicks.

Now, things get slightly more complicated if your goal is to revoke a sent email and remove it from the recipient’s inbox. 

In this guide, you will learn whether deleting an email you sent is possible

 and what features of different email providers you can use to achieve that.

Access Skiff Mail’s advanced encryption for secure emailing and get nifty features like undo send 

Regain control over your communication

If you want to delete an email from the sent folder, you can do so quickly with virtually all 

 as examples. Both platforms feature a similar layout, so you can take these steps in both:

Navigate to the email you wish to delete and hover over it with your mouse

Click the bin icon on the right side of the email

In Gmail, your deleted emails will be moved to 

, so you have ample time to undo this action if you believe you might still need the deleted email in the future.

If you want to remove sent emails for good, you can navigate to the dedicated trash folders and do it from there. Gmail makes it easier because you can click the

 button and delete all emails from the folder in one click.

Outlook doesn’t have such a button. Instead, you’ll see the one that lets you 

 in a single click, but the mass deletion option is slightly less apparent. 

 on the left side of the ribbon menu to empty the folder.

If you’re struggling with receiving unsolicited emails, you can check out these guides on 

When you delete a sent email, the action only removes it from the corresponding folder in your email app. 

The deletion doesn’t impact the recipient’s inbox

Still, there may be a workaround for this

if you use Gmail or Outlook, as both apps offer features geared toward damage control in case you accidentally send an email.

After you send an email in Gmail, you get a short time window to delete/unsend it. You only get five seconds by default, but 

you can extend the window by taking these steps

Click the gear icon in the upper-right corner of the screen

You’ll now have more time to recall an email you sent accidentally. The undo option will 

appear automatically in the bottom-left corner

 of the screen as soon as you send the email. When it does, click 

, where you’re more likely to make a mistake while emailing on the go. The 

 button will appear at the bottom of the screen, and you won’t miss it.

Unlike most email services, Outlook lets you fully recall a sent email or replace it with the correct version. It doesn’t have a predetermined time window like Gmail’s equivalent option, but 

you can only recall the message until the recipient has opened it

You can take the following steps to access this option:

Find the email you wish to recall and open it (make sure to double-click the email as a single click only shows it in the reading pane without actually opening it)

You’ll see a pop-up window asking whether you want to delete unread copies of the message or replace them with a new version. Choose the appropriate option and click 

you’ll get a report showing whether the recall was successful

, but you can uncheck this option in the pop-up window if you don’t need it.

As useful as this option may be, it comes with a 

You cannot recall a message in Outlook on the web—the option is 

Recalling an email is only possible if the recipient has a Microsoft 365/Exchange account 

If Azure Information Protection applies to a message, 

The dangers of sending sensitive information via email

 is not as easily fixable as attaching a wrong file or CC-ing a wrong person. Once your data reaches the recipient, you might lose control over how it is used or distributed further.

Worse yet, using a typical Big Tech platform (Google, Outlook, Yahoo, etc.) exposes you to the 

 before it even reaches the recipient. This exposure mainly happens for two reasons:

 encryption protocol to protect data in transit. 

intercepted through a man-in-the-middle attack

 can get a hold of your information somewhat effortlessly.

Encryption key ownership further exacerbates this issue. Encryption keys used to encrypt and decrypt your emails are 

created by the email provider and stored on 

, which means they can decipher your emails and read plaintext copies. Your data isn’t as private as providers want you to think, so you should 

be careful about the information you share

The good news is—you can mitigate these risks by steering clear of Big Tech services and 

Benefits of using a privacy-first email service

 let you share personal information more confidently, as the risk of it falling into the wrong hands becomes minimal. Several important security measures make this possible, most notably 

E2EE assures your security and privacy in several ways, and the table below highlights the most important benefits of its mechanisms:

 of services like Gmail or Outlook, the main protection layer you’ll get is S/MIME. Besides 

, this protocol requires a complex setup and a 

certificate you must buy separately and configure in your email service

—a time-consuming process that may be too technical for an average user.

Luckily, a handful of privacy-first email providers ensure you get advanced security without extreme efforts or investments. If that sounds appealing, 

Skiff Mail’s military-strong encryption is accessible to each user

Get instant data protection

Regain control of your data with Skiff Mail

 as the top priority. It safeguards each email you send using two separate keys—public and private.

 and is shared with the recipient. The private key is mathematically related to the public key and used to decipher the email, and it 

remains safely stored on the user’s device

, so even their team can’t decipher your correspondence—everything you share stays between you and the recipient.

Strong encryption isn’t the only way Skiff Mail 

, you’ll access a beautifully designed, user-friendly interface that makes the platform easy to use for beginners and advanced users. Despite its simplicity, Skiff Mail boasts numerous useful features, such as:

—You can leave yourself more time to double-check an email by scheduling it or recall a message if you’ve overlooked something

—Unlike many E2EE email services, Skiff Mail provides lightning-fast search that lets you browse emails’ contents for specific information

—Skiff Mail offers 10 GB of end-to-end 

, which is far above the industry standard (typically 1 GB with popular services)

—You can use Skiff.com aliases to manage emails from multiple addresses in one inbox and organize them with labels, folders, and filters

—Skiff Mail lets you personalize your email address and signatures to express yourself or sound more professional

. No important feature hides behind a paywall, and the free plan doesn’t expire.

Peter Lu