From any Skiff Page, click “Publish” to generate an end-to-end encrypted public link that can be shared with anyone on the web - including people without Skiff accounts.

Public Pages also publish all subpages, making it easy to share newsletters, wikis, job boards, or any other documentation for your team.

You can create a public Skiff page by clicking “Publish” from the top right corner on any web platform. Once published, the URL in your web browser will be changed to your Page’s public URL. This can be shared across the web and will make a Page (and all subpages) accessible to anyone, even those without Skiff accounts.

To learn more about how end-to-end encrypted public links work, check out our 

. All links contain unique encryption keys that keep your data private.

What paid features are available on Skiff Pages?

If you are onboarding your team onto Skiff Pages, Drive, Mail, and Calendar, paid plans offer a way to bring your entire team, company, or family to privacy. See below for more paid features, which include unlimited version history, extra storage space, and much more:

Are published pages end-to-end encrypted?

No. You can publish an unlimited number of pages, including on the Free plan.

Can you access published pages on mobile?

Yes. You can access published pages from the Skiff Pages or Drive mobile apps, or from any web browser.

Digital calendars organize and synchronize our lives across devices, jobs, families, and inboxes. From birthday parties and shopping lists to work meetings and job interviews, calendars hold our most precious contacts, life events, and work milestones.

Skiff Calendar is an end-to-end encrypted, privacy-first calendar that keeps your schedule private to you. Send invites, synchronize your calendar with your inbox automatically, and schedule meetings privately.

Today, the mobile app launch make Skiff Calendar easy to use on the go from any device, automatically synchronizing your meetings, sending critical reminders, and enabling RSVPs and invites with only a couple taps.

Below, we include download links to Skiff Calendar on iOS, iPad, and Android. You can also use Skiff Calendar from our native macOS app, which is available on the Skiff 

Do the mobile apps send reminder notifications?

Yes. On launch date, iOS and Android users will receive notifications 10 minutes prior to an event starting.

Can you send invites from the mobile apps?

Yes. After adding additional guests, click “Save” or “Update” to send an invite to all other guests.

Can you add meeting links from the mobile apps?

Yes. Click “Add Jitsi meet” to auto populate a meeting link on your event.

Can you make recurring calendar events on mobile?

Yes. Click the “repeats” button when creating your event, and then select your desired event repetition option.


Skiff Calendar on mobile

Despite the meteoric rise of social media and messaging apps to the forefront of the internet, email’s importance hasn’t faded. The messages we exchange on Instagram, Facebook, or WhatsApp are less official and structured than the ones we send as private emails, which is especially important in more formal settings like the workplace.

Another reason is email's stability and reliability—the foundational internet protocols that most email platforms are based on have changed very little from their inception in the early 1980s.

The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is chief among them because it governs how messages are transmitted between email servers. 

Unfortunately, SMPT wasn’t designed with built-in security

. We use alternative email security protocols and other methods to send secure documents and email messages.

What are different types of email security?

What is the more secure alternative to the SMTP mail protocol?

Skiff Mail offers end-to-end encryption, protecting your inbox and sensitive information from unauthorized access

Upgrade your email security

 to an Outlook account or vice versa. This is possible thanks to email protocols.

An email protocol is a group of standardized rules defining how email data travels between email clients and servers. 

The result is a universal email sent to and received from any email platform or server. Without SMTP, someone using Gmail couldn’t send a message to a Yahoo mail user—or at least, not as effortlessly.

Besides SMTP, the most widely used email protocols are:

Here’s a quick rundown of their basic functions:

Your device uses the POP3 and IMAP protocols while retrieving email data from a server. 

SMTP is the set of rules that decides how that data will reach your email server in the first place by regulating how it is transferred between servers.

Most people perceive the process of sending an email like this:

The email is transferred to your email server

The message travels from your server to the recipient’s email server via SMTP

The recipient’s email client downloads the message to their device

Thanks to today’s Internet speed, the process is almost instantaneous.

Email communication wouldn’t be possible without SMTP, but that protocol doesn’t come with encryption or other security features.

 Solely relying on SMTP means your email correspondence is unprotected in transit from server to server and while resting on one of the servers. Additional measures have to be taken to safeguard your messages and 

Different types of email security—best SMTP alternatives

 and individuals are secure, email clients provide additional security measures:

We’ll explain how all of them work to help you choose the best SMTP alternative for your emails.

email security protocols are sets of rules that ensure the functionality of global email exchange.

 Specifically, security protocols govern how your ESPs keep your 

Most ESPs, like Gmail, implement both protocols, but only premium G-Suite users have access to 

Free users, who make up the majority, can only rely on 

, who need a Microsoft 365 subscription to use the S/MIME protocol or any 

One of the ways to achieve email security is to set up a private email server. That way, you don’t have to rely on ESP’s 

, and no ESP can access the contents of your emails. In the past, Google has used email data for audience targeting in its digital advertising business, and a private server lets you avoid such misuse.

Still, you only get the benefits of email servers with proper setup and constant maintenance, which rarely outweigh the cost.

 The process involves buying, setting up, and maintaining expensive server hardware and software. Even if you have the immense prerequisite knowledge for the job, it is time-consuming and costly.

Running a private email server also means implementing every security measure yourself. In most cases, you won’t set up a better email security system than Google, Yahoo, or any large ESP. You can use hosting solutions to outsource the hardware management to someone else, but that still leaves you with a lot of work.

Some email clients give you the option of protecting your emails with a password. If you only tell the password to your intended recipient, no one else can access the email. This security method is a step up from relying solely on your ESP’s security protocols, but it comes with its own set of issues.

Not all email clients support password protection—Gmail does, for example, but Outlook doesn’t. 

Gmail’s Confidential Mode also involves the recipient reading the password from a smartphone, and relying on external devices isn’t ideal from a security perspective.

Password protection is not an elegant solution because it requires manual work from the sender and the recipient—unlike 

This security method turns an email into a coded message, ineligible to anyone except the intended recipient. 

ESPs use various encryption methods, each involving a complex algorithm that creates a cipher for your messages. The only way to decipher the message is to apply a decryption key, which (ideally) only the recipient has.

Common email encryption happens on the server level—TLS, S/MIME, and other security protocols encrypt a message before it is sent from one email server to another. The email service providers implementing these protocols store copies of the decryption keys on their servers and can use them to access your data.

This type of encryption can be broken if hackers gain unauthorized access to an email server, so the encryption is only as strong as the server's security.

Skiff's E2E-encrypted email and storage ensure your emails are truly secure and owned by you

Opt for top-notch email privacy

End-to-end encryption—the best solution

 (E2EE) involves transforming regular messages into cyphers unreadable to anyone but the authorized recipient. E2EE follows the same principle but goes further by ensuring encryption security from both endpoints.

While standard encryption used by ESP’s security protocols involves server or network-based encryption, 

E2EE encryption protects the message at the device level.

By the time a message has been uploaded to a server, E2EE has already made it unintelligible to anyone but the recipient—including your ESP or hackers who break through the server's security. Such unauthorized parties would see the same unintelligible message as everyone else without the means to decipher it.

E2EE is the best SMTP security alternative because:

—Your ESP can’t read your messages, so they can’t be used for ad targeting or any other activity without your knowledge

It’s more reliable than standard email encryption

—Standard email encryption relies on your ESP’s servers, putting your data in the control of your email client and the company behind it. With E2EE, you retain complete control of your data

Mainstream email clients, like those operated by Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo, don’t provide E2EE protection. Their encryption methods are server-based, leaving your emails vulnerable to interception by man-in-the-middle (MITM) and other cyberattacks.

 is an excellent choice for E2EE-protected email.

 The platform provides all the web-based productivity tools you need, with optional Android and 

 for accessing your work on the go. Register for a free account and gain access to:

—an encrypted cloud storage solution for private files

—a browser-based workspace with collaboration features

Skiff combines the well-designed interface of popular ESPs with the ultimate encryption-based security across all Skiff tools.

The transition is smooth, so you can easily migrate from your previous email service provider by importing all email data into Skiff Mail. A free account gets you 10 GB of storage, an email search function, four aliases, and signature and auto-reply options, but you can move up to the 

 at any time and get additional features—including up to 1 TB of storage and custom email domains.

Take control of your online data with Skiff

Thanks to device-level encryption, no one can access your emails apart from their recipients—including Skiff. The platform also supports native web3 integration, allowing you to connect with your favorite 

 and ensure any communication related to your online transactions stays private.

Signing up for a free Skiff account is easy. It takes three simple steps:

Start using Skiff Mail and the other Skiff tools

 and protect your online communication from unwanted prying eyes!

What is the more secure alternative to the SMTP mail protocol? Explained by experts 

You've probably used a wiki before. If you're a student, you've probably used one to organize your class notes or share them with classmates - or devoured content from public wikis to quickly learn about a new topic. You might have a personal wiki for your life, goals, plans, and projects.

If you're a developer, you or your company may have private wikis for project management, for software development, or to document how-to information for other members of your team. Or maybe you've seen wikis used in other contexts — for instance, in companies where employees use them to share knowledge about best practices and processes that may be useful across departments or at different levels within an organization.

A wiki is an easy to use and highly adaptable website that allows users to share and participate in the creation of content. Some examples of wikis include Wikipedia and all sorts of collaborative websites such as GitHub, Stack Exchange, and even this very page. Wikis are typically highly inter-linked, or internally reference content through links and logical connections.

A private wiki is a wiki only you have access to, either in a personal or professional environment. While some wikis, such as Wikipedia, are shared with the entire world, most internal wikis or personal knowledge is intended to keep private and never shared with the world. 

 is a collaborative platform with a neutral point of view that anyone can edit. It was founded in 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger. As of October 2019, there are more than 39 million articles in over 300 languages. From there, thousands of additional wikis have been created, from fan-maintained articles about movies, to developer and productivity communities.

Private wikis are useful if you want to share information with only certain people or keep personal, professional, or customer information private. However, it's also useful for any other situation where you want your own personal space on the web without worrying about others seeing (and potentially stealing) what's inside it.

A wiki is a type of website that allows users to add, remove, or otherwise edit and change website content in a collaborative manner. This is in contrast to most websites, where only a designated website administrator can make changes to the website. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and communities - Wikipedia, Quora, Wikitravel, and more.

There are many benefits to using a wiki. One benefit is that it allows for a website to be constantly updated and edited by a community of users, rather than relying on a single website administrator. This can result in a more accurate and up-to-date website, as well as a website that is more reflective of the community it represents.

Another benefit of using a wiki is that it can be a more democratic way of creating and managing a website. Rather than having a single administrator who has complete control over the website, a wiki allows for a more collaborative approach where everyone can have a say in how the website is run. This can lead to a more effective and efficient website that better meets the needs of its users. Frequently, multiple team members can vote, edit, and participate in creating and editing content.

Overall, wikis can be a very effective way to create and manage a website. They offer a number of advantages over traditional websites, including being more accurate and up-to-date, more reflective of the community, and more democratic. In the rest of this blog, we’ll share more about how private wikis are used for knowledge management or personal work. Then, we’ll review a few popular products for creating and managing them.

You can use a private wiki to organize and share knowledge across your organization. Private wikis are great for communicating with colleagues, other members of an organization, or family members. However, if a wiki is created on a public server and shared with the wrong people, you can run into a lot of problems. This can be anything from content leakage to spammy comments and even vandalism. For example, in a company with tens of thousands of employees, maintaining an editable company wiki or workspace that spans the entire organization could lead to knowledge being shared in unintended ways, or possibly being exfiltrated to other sources.

The reason this happens is because wikis are meant to be open spaces where users can add content without needing approval from anyone else, but they also serve as repositories for sensitive information. If the private wiki you create isn't properly secured, then someone might see something they shouldn't or get access to something they don't need access to—and that could lead to major internal or external trust issues.

In the past, larger organizations have chosen to run their own wiki software on internal servers, which are frequently separated from the public internet. In the early days of the internet, these could be simple HTML viewers, or more sophisticated software for internal wiki management or publication.

However, the security, configuration, and maintenance costs of this solution are significantly greater than using cloud-based wiki software. For example, you may need to setup a firewall, so that no one but your internal organization can access the contents of the wiki. At some scale, this may require setting up VPN access directly to these internal servers, as well as significant protections against malware and viruses by scanning for threats with an antivirus program regularly.

Wikis help share knowledge, but only when private

A wiki can help you organize and share knowledge, but only if it's private.

Wikis have become one of the most popular software tools for organizing and sharing information. They're incredibly useful, but their openness means that anyone who knows about your wiki can access it, which may not be desirable. If your business has information, docs, or institutional knowledge that must be kept secure, then a fully open-source wiki might not be ideal.

In the following sections, we’ll review different types of wiki products that individuals and organizations may consider using for knowledge management, onboarding new employees, and for file storage. However, most of these products are not built for security. From there, we’ll review wiki tools that build in end-to-end encryption and finer grained sharing options to increase user privacy.

 product is a team collaboration tool that allows users to create, share, and collaborate on documents. It is similar to a wiki, but with more features and a better user interface. Confluence is used by organizations of all sizes, including Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, and small businesses. Confluence is frequently packaged with other Atlassian products, such as Jira (issue tracking and project management).

Confluence is praised for its commenting, formatting toolbar, and collaboration options inside its WYSIWYG editor, which provide easy ways for teams to share knowledge and give feedback on work. Atlassian also offers a plugin marketplace wherein additional software can be installed to augment built-in functionality.

Notion is an all-in-one knowledge hub for your notes, tasks, wikis, and databases. It's like a cross between a word processor and a spreadsheet, with a little bit of presentation software mixed in. You can use it for everything from taking notes to managing a team project. The basic idea behind Notion is that you can have everything in one place. That means your notes, to-do lists, wiki pages, and a database can all live inside one home page. And because everything is in one place, you can easily keep track of everything and get work done more efficiently.

Notion is designed to be flexible, so you can use it for a wide variety of purposes. For example, you can use it to take notes for a meeting, create a to-do list, track a project's progress, or manage a team Wiki. Notion is also designed to be collaborative, so you can easily share your work with others and work together on projects. You can also add integration and comment or mention users on any page, so you can create more conversational workflows.

However, Notion supports only the most basic enterprise security features and is not end-to-end encrypted. Ultimately, for a private wiki, end-to-end encryption is a critical need for keeping your data safe. For more information on encrypted note taking products, check out our blog on 

Obsidian is a note taking tool that allows you to create and organize your notes in a way that is both efficient and effective. With Obsidian, you can create notes that are linked to other notes, making it easy to cross-reference and find information. You can also tag your notes, making it easy to find specific notes later on. In addition, Obsidian allows you to create and share notes with others, making collaboration easy.

Whether you are taking notes for class, work, or personal use, Obsidian is a tool that can help you be more organized and productive. With its markdown syntax and ability to link notes, Obsidian is a tool that can help you make the most of your notes or thoughts, particularly for a technical audience.

Obsidian also allows for end-to-end encryption of your notes, keeping personal information completely private to you. However, one note is that Obsidian may have a steeper learning curve due to sophisticated options for interlinking pages and thoughts together. As a result, Obsidian could be a good choice for a personal wiki, as opposed to a larger organization that must manage a significant amount of wiki content.

Skiff is a privacy-first, end-to-end encrypted workspace for writing, collaborating, and communicating. It includes a wiki-based product called Skiff Pages, which supports completely secure and end-to-end encrypted notes that can be connected to other notes. Multiple user can also collaborate in real-time on notes, pages, or documents, and publish them to the web from directly inside the app.

Skiff is an incredibly user-friendly product that also offers mobile and native apps, including applications for iOS and Android, as well as powerful sharing functionality for adding additional users or sharing external wikis with viewable or editable links. When creating new pages, Skiff also supports templates, both inside your workspace and from a set of pre-existing pages.

Skiff also offers products for end-to-end encrypted file storage and sharing, allowing wikis to contain or embed files, and replace storage products like Google Drive. Skiff Mail - which enables sending and receiving end-to-end encrypted email - is also integrated inside the Skiff workspace. Whether you’re creating an internal knowledge base, tracking personal files, or managing homework, Skiff is an excellent, privacy-first product for creating a free wiki.

Creating a wiki requires an investment in security and privacy, no matter whether the use will be internal (for personal thoughts) or external (for your company). Managing permissions, access, and content is critical for any organization’s good security practices. In this blog, we discussed some common wiki platforms that organizations and individuals may choose; overall, we recommend 

We hope that you enjoyed this tutorial on how to create a private wiki. We welcome any feedback you may have and encourage you join our 

, or read more of our blog entries below.

How to create a private wiki

We’re excited to announce that Skiff Mail has been awarded the PCMag Editor’s Choice award and an “Outstanding” review. Check out the full 

, which goes into incredible depth on Skiff’s Mail, Drive, and Pages products, as well as all the different ways you can leverage the sharing and security functionality for your team.

Detailed review of search, organizations, and more

Neil Rubenking’s review contains a detailed description of how searching on Skiff works. On Skiff Mail, all emails are searchable by default - a rare feature release in an end-to-end encrypted communication product.

As the article specifies, Skiff has pioneered open-source, client-side search algorithms for sequencing and searching through end-to-end encrypted data. For more information on how search works in Skiff Mail and Skiff Pages, read our technical blog post “

The incredibly thorough review also discusses how every Skiff user can benefit from using multiple email aliases, downloading native apps on iOS, Android, and Mac desktops. Downloading apps earns credit towards a Pro subscription, which provides extra storage space and other additional features.

In the final sections, the PCMag review offers a detailed introduction to Skiff Pages and Skiff Drive - fully end-to-end encrypted products for collaboration, note taking, file storage, and sharing. Files can be dragged and dropped into the webapp, created from scratch, or adapted from the in-app template library.

Skiff’s in-app editor allows for significant customization, including text color, highlighting, sophisticated tables, and more. For external collaboration, every user can also click “Publish” to share end-to-end encrypted viewable or editable links. These links can easily be shared in a messaging app, email, or chat function. To learn more about link sharing on Skiff, check out our 

, one of the top sources for trusted information about privacy-respecting services all over the web. Check out the site to learn more about privacy-respecting products for collaborating, communicating, and more.

PCMag Editor’s Choice and more

Attorney-client privilege is a cornerstone of the American legal system. It is a 

 that encourages full and frank communication between attorneys and their clients, and ensures that clients can feel confident that their discussions with their attorneys will remain private.

Attorney-client privilege applies to numerous scenarios during legal proceedings, discovery, and trials. As a result, it’s critical that defendants and attorneys understand how to ensure communications remain protected, secure, and confidential.

Today, the problem of understanding when the privilege applies has become increasingly complex. Decades ago, cell phones led to initial questions on when conversations were considered privileged; today, electronic communications have become the norm for clients and their law firms to communicate, leading to complexity around who may have access to 

In this blog, we’ll begin with a detailed overview of what attorney client privilege is and when it applies. We’ll also cover the critical cases where clients may waive attorney client privilege, either explicitly or through inadvertently disclosing sensitive information. From there, we’ll give examples of communications where a defendant may have an expectation of privacy and explore how the correct technological tools will ensure that sensitive information remains privileged and confidential.

Attorney-client privilege is a legal principle that protects communications between attorneys and their clients. The principle is based on the belief that attorneys need to be able to freely communicate with their clients in order to provide effective legal representation. The attorney-client privilege is a part of the larger concept of 

, however. There are certain circumstances in which the privilege may be waived, or may not apply at all. For example, the privilege may be waived if the client puts the attorney’s advice at issue in a legal proceeding. Additionally, the privilege may not apply if the attorney is suspected of committing a crime or if the client intends to commit a crime.

There are also a few other circumstances where the attorney-client privilege may not apply. For example, if the attorney is working for a criminal defense lawyer and the client confesses to a crime, the attorney may have to testify about the confession in court. Or, if the communication between the attorney and client is overheard by someone else, the privilege may not apply.

Despite these exceptions, the attorney-client privilege is a vital part of our legal system and is essential to ensuring that people can seek legal advice without fear of their discussions being made public.

Since the dawn of the Internet, people have been able to communicate with one another in ways never before possible. With the click of a mouse or the tap of a touchscreen, we can instantly connect with friends, family, and colleagues from all over the globe. But as convenient and useful as this instant connectivity is, it comes with a major downside: a loss of 

Most of us are aware that our online activities are being tracked by corporations like Google and Facebook. But what many people don't realize is that the government is also watching our every move online. In 2013, the 

 was revealed to be collecting the phone records of millions of Americans. And more recently, it was revealed that the NSA has been collecting the online communications of Americans as well. This mass surveillance erodes our privacy in a fundamental way. It means that the government can track our every move online, and, in certain cases, potentially read our private communications.

This is a huge problem, because privacy is essential to freedom and a functioning judicial system. Privacy allows us to freely express our opinions and thoughts, without fear of reprisal. It allows us to engage in sensitive and confidential discussions, without worrying that our words will be used against us. Without privacy, we cannot have truly free and fair elections.

In the legal system, privacy is a fundamental need and expectation for communications between attorneys and clients.

Privileged communications are communications between a lawyer and a client that are protected from disclosure. The attorney-client privilege is a type of privileged communication that is recognized by law and protects certain confidential communications between a lawyer and a client from being included in a discovery process. It also applies in a context where a lawyer could be compelled to testify 

Importantly, the privilege can only apply when an attorney-client 

 exists. In other cases, such as when an attorney could be asked to provide advice, the privilege may not exist. However, it may still apply to conversations between a client and their prospective attorneys - for example, if a client consults many different law firms in the process of selecting a defense attorney.

Evidently, the privilege is built on important but somewhat vague legal doctrines, where it may not always be patently clear where the privilege applies or when it does not. In the following section, we’ll explore cases where attorney client privilege applies due to a client’s expectation of privacy.

There are many cases where a defendant may, either explicitly or implicitly, 

. This includes situations where a defendant loses a “

 of privacy,” such as speaking in a loud voice where others may overhear a particular conversation. Alternatively, using a cell phone in a public place where other individuals could overhear privileged information may lead to a defendant unintentionally waiving attorney client privilege.

Waiving this critical privilege may also happen in many more scenarios. For example, if a defendant is having a conversation with an attorney inside a jail with other individuals (including law enforcement) around, they may not have an expectation of privacy for their client information. Another present individual, whether a member of the public, another resident of a jail, or law enforcement, may receive a subpoena or volunteer to testify.

This yields significant complexity in the context of email communications between lawyers and their clients. For example, if a client is communicating using an email account, and the email plaintext passes through additional servers, does the client retain an expectation of privacy for confidential information?

The stakes are incredibly high: Imagine if a client provides incriminating information in a message sent via Gmail, or a personal email account, that goes to their lawyer’s professional email address. Does an individual have an expectation of privacy over the content of this email? What about a subject line? What if they are using a professional email address?

 consensus on this matter. However, it has been made quite clear that emails sent using a 

 email address, such as one provided by a company and not for personal use, are not necessarily privileged. Given this, it’s conceivable that a client could send critical privileged material to their attorney; then, during a discovery period, it is possible that communication may be ruled not privileged.

Even if a lawyer refused to provide such information during a trial, using unencrypted email providers opens additional loopholes for access to these communications. For example, because Gmail is not end-to-end encrypted, Google could theoretically be compelled to respond to a subpoena and provide the content of such attorney-client communications.

As a result, many attorneys now encourage clients to choose privacy-first communication methods that reduce the chance that any communications could be unintentionally ruled non-privileged. The best defenses include using end-to-end encrypted communication products, such as a privacy-first messenger and email service. When using these products, no technology provider has access to your communications - only you and your attorney - ensuring that your confidential emails 

How to communicate privately with your attorney

An end-to-end encrypted messenger is a messaging app that uses end-to-end encryption to keep your messages secure. This means that only you and recipients can read messages sent back and forth, and no one else - including a technology provider - can access them. This is important because it means that even if someone were to hack into your account or intercept your messages, they would not be able to read them.

Beyond good cybersecurity practices, end-to-end encrypted messengers also fall clearly in the space of an expectation of privacy between a client and 

. There are a few different end-to-end encrypted messaging apps available, but some of the most popular ones include Signal, WhatsApp, and iMessage. More and more messaging apps are incorporating end-to-end encryption today, such as Android messenger.

To learn more about end-to-end encrypted messaging products, read 

 covering Signal, WhatsApp, and more. We go into significantly greater detail on how these products leverage end-to-end encryption as well as the metadata or other personal information that they collect.

Use an end-to-end encrypted email product

Emails are perhaps the most widely used method for lawyers to conduct business with clients. They constantly contain sensitive information, attachments, disclaimers, and more - demonstrating a clear need to understand how privileged communications may or may not apply.

End-to-end encrypted email is a secure way to send and receive email messages. The contents of the messages are encrypted end-to-end, so only the sender and recipient can read them (as in the case of an end-to-end encrypted messaging product). This makes it more difficult for third parties to intercept and read the messages, or for a legal system to compel a technology provider to submit an individual’s personal email content.

Popular end-to-end encrypted email services include 

. All offer privacy-first inboxes and easy-to-use mobile apps. We currently recommend using Skiff due to the end-to-end encryption of subject lines as well as 10 GB of free storage, which is particularly useful for any professional communications.

Keep track of communications, or use ephemeral messages

To build even greater confidence that your communications are private, you may also consider ensuring that they expire after a particular period. For example, Signal Messenger offers disappearing messages that expire after a certain period of time (from minutes to 

); Skiff offers documents that expire after a period of time.

However, you may note that judges have also recognized that ephemeral communications may hamper in evidence 

 even when attorney client privilege does not apply. As a result, you may consider consulting your attorney on the types of communications that would be used inside an ephemeral messaging product. Communicating using an end-to-end encrypted voice call on Signal is another good alternative to a traditional voice call.

Privacy matters in the legal system because it allows both the defense and prosecution to communicate honestly with counsel. This right to counsel is a fundamental right guaranteed by the 

 of the Constitution. This right exists to protect the accused from the vast resources and power of the government, and to ensure that individuals accused of crimes have an opportunity to mount an effective defense. Without the right to counsel, prosecutors could easily steamroll accused individuals, resulting in an unfair trial and potential wrongful convictions.

Attorney client privilege represents a cornerstone of this individual right to counsel by ensuring that defendants can openly and honestly communicate with their legal teams. However, attorney client privilege is by no means absolute - it can be waived explicitly, if a defendant decides he or she no longer needs the privilege, or by sharing confidential information without an expectation for privacy.

As a result, both attorneys and individuals must take care whenever communicating sensitive information. Technology has added additional nuance to attorney client privilege, particularly if individuals are communicating in a public place or using an email product where a technology provider has access to email content. We recommend universally employing good technological practices, such as always using an end-to-end encrypted communication product like 

, and having explicit conversations with attorneys about what information should be kept privileged and confidential. Finally, given ongoing legal ambiguity, we recommend never using a work email address to communicate with a personal attorney, as any information in that email account may fail to be considered privileged and confidential.

End-to-end encryption for messages, emails, and files yields critical privacy protections even outside of a legal context. We highly recommend using end-to-end encrypted communication, note-taking, and file storage products in general and have written blogs on the best products in each space (check out 

Are emails to attorneys confidential?

On December 28th, Fast Company published their list of the top 25 newest apps of 2022. From Mastodon to ChatGPT, these apps offered radically different ways to communicate, collaborate, and write.

Skiff offers the same - but privately, with an end-to-end encrypted workspace. Over the course of 2022, we launched 

Today, Skiff products offer a feature-complete solution to the Google and Microsoft style productivity suites for communicating and collaborating. Larger teams can also take advantage of custom domains, shared teams, and shared links for collaborating externally.

 with Pro and Business tiers for individuals, families, and teams. Skiff’s paid tiers offer more storage space (up to one terabyte per user), extra email aliases (up to fifteen per user), additional version history, and shorter email aliases.

Most of all, we are grateful to the individuals who use our products and join our communities across 

Skiff named top 25 app of 2022

Migrating mail from Gmail or Google Workspace to Skiff can be done with only one click. From your Skiff Mail 

, click “Import mail.” You’ll be presented with multiple options, including:

Direct import from Gmail/Google Workspace

For the simplest option, we recommend choosing the Gmail/Google Workspace sign in option to sign in to your Google account and automatically import mail into your Skiff inbox. This will also continuously sync future mail, so any new emails received in your Google Workspace account will be imported into Skiff.

Mbox and EML file imports may be useful if you are either permanently closing your Google account, or if you are only looking to import a few emails. 

 - Google’s automated service for exporting data - produces Mbox files containing large numbers of emails. EML files are created when you download a single email from Gmail. So, if you are using Google Takeout or importing a few emails, the file import options could make sense.

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