Email providers
Purelymail privacy rating
Low-cost email hosting from the United States with custom domains, standard protocols and mail stored encrypted with the user's password.
Summary
Purelymail scores 55 out of 100 (grade D) on the email providers criteria. It meets 8 of 19 criteria: no trackers or telemetry, no ads or data sales, TLS configuration, encrypted mailbox storage, open protocols, custom domains, sign up without personal data and IMAP support. It partly meets security headers, POP3 support, SMTP submission and mail transport security. It does not meet open source, independent audit, transparency report, tells users about requests, end-to-end encryption, Sender Rewriting Scheme and ARC sealing. It is based in the United States: Five Eyes member; subject to the US CLOUD Act. Automated tests: SSL Labs grade A and Mozilla HTTP Observatory grade B+.
Score 55 out of 100. How scoring works
Criteria
- No
-
Yes
No trackers or telemetry Weight 3 of 3
Are the website and apps free of third-party trackers, with any analytics anonymous and any telemetry off by default?
The privacy policy lists only diagnostic and billing data, and the website loads no third-party trackers.
-
Yes
No ads or data sales Weight 2 of 3
Is the product funded without advertising, ad targeting or selling user data?
Funded by paid plans. Purelymail states it will never sell or monetize user data.
-
No
Independent audit Weight 2 of 3
Has an independent security or privacy audit been published within the last three years?
No independent audit is published.
-
No
Transparency report Weight 2 of 3
Does the provider regularly publish how many government and legal requests it receives and how it responds?
No transparency report or government request policy is published.
-
No
Tells users about requests Weight 1 of 3
Does the provider promise to tell users about requests for their data, unless a court forbids it?
No published policy on notifying users about data requests.
-
No
End-to-end encryption Weight 3 of 3
Can mail be end-to-end encrypted so that the provider cannot read message contents?
Not supported. Purelymail suggests S/MIME in the mail client.
-
Yes
Encrypted mailbox storage Weight 3 of 3
Is stored mail encrypted with a key the provider does not hold?
Mail is encrypted with a key derived from the user's password when password reset is turned off. Search indexes may hold partial content.
-
Yes
Open protocols Weight 2 of 3
Can any standard app connect over IMAP, POP3, SMTP, CalDAV or CardDAV, without extra software?
IMAP, POP3 and SMTP work with any client.
-
Yes
Custom domains Weight 1 of 3
Can mail be sent and received with your own domain?
Unlimited custom domains at no extra charge.
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Yes
Sign up without personal data Weight 2 of 3
Can an account be created without a phone number or another email address?
Recovery email and phone are optional for paid sign-ups. Only the free trial needs an SMS-capable phone.
-
No
Sender Rewriting Scheme Weight 1 of 3
Is the envelope sender rewritten with SRS when mail is forwarded, so forwarded mail keeps passing SPF?
No published documentation on SRS for forwarded mail.
-
No
ARC sealing Weight 1 of 3
Does the provider validate and add ARC (RFC 8617) signatures, so authentication results survive forwarding?
No published documentation on ARC signing or validation.
Automated tests
-
Yes
TLS configuration Weight 2 of 3
Does the website pass the Qualys SSL Labs test with a grade of A or better?
Grade A
-
Partial
Security headers Weight 1 of 3
Does the website pass the Mozilla HTTP Observatory test with a grade of A or better?
Grade B+ (80/100+)
-
Not tested yet
Modern web standards Weight 1 of 3
Does the website score 90% or higher on the Internet.nl website test?
Not tested yet.
-
Not tested yet
Email security standards Weight 2 of 3
Does the mail domain score 90% or higher on the Internet.nl email test?
Not tested yet.
-
Yes
IMAP support Weight 2 of 3
Does the IMAP server accept connections over implicit TLS on port 993 and advertise IMAP4rev1 or IMAP4rev2 with IDLE push?
imap.purelymail.com:993 (implicit TLS). IMAP4rev1 advertised with IDLE.
-
Partial
POP3 support Weight 1 of 3
Does the POP3 server accept connections over implicit TLS on port 995 and answer CAPA with UIDL?
pop3.purelymail.com:995 (implicit TLS). CAPA: PIPELINING, USER, STLS.
-
Partial
SMTP submission Weight 2 of 3
Does mail submission work over implicit TLS on port 465 with SMTPUTF8, 8BITMIME, PIPELINING and AUTH?
smtp.purelymail.com:465 (implicit TLS). Missing: SMTPUTF8.
-
Partial
Mail transport security Weight 3 of 3
Does the mail domain enforce encrypted, authenticated delivery with MTA-STS, DANE, DNSSEC, TLS-RPT and an enforced DMARC policy?
Passes: SPF, DMARC reject, MTA-STS enforce, TLS-RPT. Missing: DNSSEC, DANE none.
Email standards
- Yes: Mail serversMXmailserver.purelymail.com
- Yes: RFC 7208 sender policySPFpublished
- Yes: RFC 7489. Quarantine or reject counts as enforcedDMARCp=reject
- Yes: RFC 8461 strict transport securityMTA-STSenforce
- Yes: RFC 8460 TLS failure reportsTLS-RPTpublished
- No: RFC 4033 signed DNSDNSSECnot validated
- No: RFC 7672 TLSA records on MX hostsDANEnone
- No: Brand logo record (not scored)BIMInone
- Yes: RFC 6186 and RFC 8314 service records (not scored)SRVclient autoconfiguration published
IMAP imap.purelymail.com:993 · implicit TLS
- IMAP4REV1
- LITERAL+
- CHILDREN
- I18NLEVEL=1
- NAMESPACE
- IDLE
- ENABLE
- CONDSTORE
- QRESYNC
- ANNOTATION
- AUTH=PLAIN
- SASL-IR
- RIGHTS=
- WITHIN
- ESEARCH
- ESORT
- SEARCHRES
- SORT
- MOVE
- UIDPLUS
- UNSELECT
- COMPRESS=DEFLATE
POP3 pop3.purelymail.com:995 · implicit TLS
- PIPELINING
- USER
- STLS
SMTP submission smtp.purelymail.com:465 · implicit TLS
- AUTH
- PIPELINING
- ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
- 8BITMIME
- SIZE
Capabilities are what each server advertises before login. How these tests work