How to make an email without a phone number or other personal information

Wondering how to make an email without a phone number? Check out our guide to learn the best method and safeguard your sensitive data.

With the increasing concerns over email privacy and security, many people are hesitant to share their phone numbers when creating an account. This is not a surprise, as email is among the main vectors of cyberattacks.Millions of data points have already leaked—including phone numbers—so it’s natural to wonder if there’s a way to avoid becoming a part of such grim statistics.Luckily, there is—you can choose an email provider that lets you make an email without a phone number and offers sufficient protection for your sensitive data. This guide will give examples of such providers and answer some important questions:

Why is it dangerous to leave a phone number to an email provider?
What makes an email service secure enough to be trusted?
Which email service should you use to keep your correspondence safe?

Create a genuinely private emailSkiff allows you to sign in without providing any personal information, ensuring your online identity remains anonymous

Why email providers require phone numbers, and how this endangers your privacy

Email services require phone numbers for three main reasons:

Account verification—Providers verify the identity of the person creating the account by connecting it to a legitimate phone number
Two-factor authentication (2FA)—2FA ensures that even if a user’s login credentials are compromised, an intruder cannot log in without the verification code sent to the user’s phone
Account recovery—In case of a locked account or forgotten password, most email services use the phone number to send the recovery code, so only the account owner can regain access to the email account

While these are all legitimate reasons to ask for a phone number, most email providers don’t ensure their security. This is especially true for Big Tech platforms, which rely on weak security protocols that a competent hacker can breach easily.Gmail, Outlook, and similar providers implement the basic TLS (Transport Layer Security) protocol, which is not secure enough to safeguard your private data. Their internal privacy practices are also quite invasive, which only exacerbates the issue.If you entrust an email provider with personal data, they must justify that trust with proper security measures.

What makes an email service secure

To be in full control of your sensitive information, you should look for privacy-first email services that do not ask for personally identifiable information (PII). This way, neither the service nor any unauthorized third party can exploit your personal information or put you at risk of identity theft.Besides enabling zero-knowledge signup, private email services implement several important data protection methods:

E2EE (end-to-end encryption)	E2EE ensures your email’s content and metadata are encrypted before leaving your device (as opposed to being encrypted on the provider’s server with standard encryption). Your message can only be deciphered by the recipient with the decryption key stored on their device. As the user creates the decryption key, nobody but them and the recipient can see plaintext messages, ensuring complete privacy and confidentiality
No-logs policy	Email services with a no-logs policy don’t keep any records of user activity, data, or personal identifiers, so the user’s correspondence and identity are confidential
Email recovery code	When signing up, users get a unique code they can save on their device and use for email recovery instead of personal identifiers
Two-factor authentication using an authenticator app instead of a phone number	Private email services support two-factor authentication using a one-time code generated by the dedicated authenticator app instead of sending one to the user’s phone

Protect your privacy with Skiff MailSkiff offers a privacy-first E2EE email service that doesn't require any personal information

Three email services that don’t require a phone number

The only way to make an email without a phone number is to go with a secure provider that won’t ask for one. While there are various options you can explore, three deserve special attention because of their strong security practices:

Proton Mail
Tutanota
Skiff

Proton Mail

Source: Proton MailProton Mail is a private email service using zero-access E2EE to protect user data, which means their team can’t get ahold of your decryption keys or other sensitive information. Such advanced security has made Proton Mail a popular choice among privacy-first users.The provider doesn’t track IP addresses or require personal information for an account, so there’s no data a third party could tie to the user and their account—you only need a username and password to get started.Proton Mail advises users to provide either an alternative email address or phone number to recover their email in case of forgotten login details, but doing so is optional. While you can create an account without such information, you risk losing access to it if you forget your credentials.Even though Proton Mail offers end-to-end encryption to all users, it uses the outdated Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) encryption standard, which doesn’t encrypt subject lines and has been tied to vulnerabilities.PGP is also not supported by all email clients, so your correspondence might not be secured if the recipient uses an unsupported platform.Proton Mail offers 500 MB of free storage, which likely won’t cover an average user’s needs. You can get another 500 MB for free by completing simple tasks.To get sufficient storage and additional features, users can upgrade to:

Mail Plus—$4.99/month ($3.99 with an annual commitment/$3.49 with a two-year commitment)
Proton Unlimited—$11.99/month ($9.99 with an annual commitment/$7.99 with a two-year commitment)

Tutanota

Source: Tutanota

Similar to Proton Mail, Tutanota offers end-to-end encryption for all messages and files, so users can share emails without worrying about unauthorized access to their content or personal information.To create an account on Tutanota, you only need basic information like the username and password, and no personal identifiers are needed for verification.Tutanota also has a secure email recovery system. Upon signing up, users receive a unique recovery code that should be kept safe. You’ll get the code as soon as you enter the username and email address, so you can write it down or save it on your device.The platform doesn’t store the recovery code, so only you will know it unless you decide to share it with someone (which is not recommended).Apart from not requiring personal login details, Tutanota secures emails with AES-128 (Advanced Encryption Standard) and PFS (Perfect Forward Secrecy). AES-128 encryption makes user data unreadable without a private key, while PFS generates short-term session keys whenever a connection is established to minimize the attack surface.The platform takes your IP address off the email headers and offers metadata encryption, so in case of a cyberattack, an intruder can’t see any information they could exploit.Tutanota’s main downside is that it offers 1GB of free storage, which is not enough for an average user’s needs. With a paid plan, users get up to 10 GB of storage and access to a variety of advanced features.Users who wish to upgrade have two options:

Premium—$1.30 a month/$1.09 with annual billing
Teams—$5.24 a month/$4.36 with annual billing

Note that Tutanona only offers pricing information in EUR, so the above prices were converted to USD based on the exchange rate at the moment of writing.

Skiff Mail

Source: Skiff

Skiff Mail is a privacy-first email service offering numerous security measures. The platform uses advanced E2EE that ensures nobody—including Skiff’s team—can access your messages. Skiff’s encryption involves two separate keys:

Key Type	Use
Public key	Used for encryption and shared between the sender and recipient
Private key	Used for decryption and securely stored on the user’s device

The platform supports two-factor authentication using the Authenticator app, so you don’t need to leave any personal information to enjoy maximum security. Skiff also enables zero-knowledge login—an authentication system that doesn’t store or transmit any private credentials.To create a Skiff account, all you need is a username and a password. The platform will never ask for personal information like your real name and phone number for verification.Skiff Mail supports an advanced email recovery method using a unique key that you can download to your device and use if you forget your login information.To further ensure online anonymity, Skiff lets you log in using your crypto wallet. The platform currently integrates with:

Besides E2EE and the above security measures, Skiff’s generous free plan with no time limit includes:

10 GB storage
4 Skiff.com aliases
Access to three additional end-to-end encrypted platforms:
Skiff Pages for safe collaboration and document sharing
Skiff Drive for secure storage of all file types with optional InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) integration
Skiff Calendar for staying organized and hosting private meetings and video conferences
Fast email and text search option
Custom email signatures

Skiff is open source, so you can inspect its source code on the platform’s GitHub. You can also check the whitepaper to verify its security protocols and find out more about its many features.

Sign up for Skiff Mail and take control of your data

Getting started with Skiff only takes three simple steps:

Visit the Signup page
Create an account
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An average user should get everything they need with Skiff’s unlimited free plan. If your needs evolve, upgrade to Skiff’s paid plans for custom domains, unlimited folders and labels, and up to 1 TB of storage:

Essential—From $3 per month
Pro—From $8 per month
Business—From $12 per month

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