Email providers
Tuta privacy rating
End-to-end encrypted email and calendar service from Germany, with open-source apps for web, desktop and mobile.
Summary
Tuta scores 61 out of 100 (grade C) on the email providers criteria. It meets 9 of 18 criteria: no trackers or telemetry, no ads or data sales, transparency report, security headers, end-to-end encryption, encrypted mailbox storage, custom domains, sign up without personal data and mail transport security. It partly meets open source. It does not meet independent audit, tells users about requests, open protocols, IMAP support, POP3 support, SMTP submission, Sender Rewriting Scheme and ARC sealing. It is based in Germany: Fourteen Eyes member; EU member (GDPR). Automated tests: Mozilla HTTP Observatory grade A+.
Score 61 out of 100. How scoring works
Criteria
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Partial
Open source Weight 3 of 3
Is all the source code needed to run the product public?
Apps are open source under GPL-3.0. The server is not.
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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?
No Google Analytics or other third-party analysis tools. Anonymized usage statistics are collected only with prior consent.
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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. No ads on any plan, including the free plan.
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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.
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Yes
Transparency report Weight 2 of 3
Does the provider regularly publish how many government and legal requests it receives and how it responds?
Publishes counts of requests by type and how many led to data being released.
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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.
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Yes
End-to-end encryption Weight 3 of 3
Can mail be end-to-end encrypted so that the provider cannot read message contents?
Mail between Tuta users is always end-to-end encrypted, including subject lines. Password-protected mail is available for other recipients.
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Yes
Encrypted mailbox storage Weight 3 of 3
Is stored mail encrypted with a key the provider does not hold?
The whole mailbox, including the search index, is encrypted with keys only the user holds.
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No
Open protocols Weight 2 of 3
Can any standard app connect over IMAP, POP3, SMTP, CalDAV or CardDAV, without extra software?
No IMAP, POP3 or SMTP access. Mail can only be used in Tuta's own apps.
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Yes
Custom domains Weight 1 of 3
Can mail be sent and received with your own domain?
Available on paid plans from Revolutionary up.
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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?
No phone number or other email address is needed to register.
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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.
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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
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Not tested yet
TLS configuration Weight 2 of 3
Does the website pass the Qualys SSL Labs test with a grade of A or better?
Could not test: No endpoint could be graded
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Yes
Security headers Weight 1 of 3
Does the website pass the Mozilla HTTP Observatory test with a grade of A or better?
Grade A+ (105/100+)
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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.
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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.
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No
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?
Not offered.
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No
POP3 support Weight 1 of 3
Does the POP3 server accept connections over implicit TLS on port 995 and answer CAPA with UIDL?
Not offered.
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No
SMTP submission Weight 2 of 3
Does mail submission work over implicit TLS on port 465 with SMTPUTF8, 8BITMIME, PIPELINING and AUTH?
Not offered.
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Yes
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 quarantine, MTA-STS enforce, TLS-RPT, DNSSEC, DANE all.
Email standards
- Yes: Mail serversMXmail.tutanota.de
- Yes: RFC 7208 sender policySPFpublished
- Yes: RFC 7489. Quarantine or reject counts as enforcedDMARCp=quarantine
- Yes: RFC 8461 strict transport securityMTA-STSenforce
- Yes: RFC 8460 TLS failure reportsTLS-RPTpublished
- Yes: RFC 4033 signed DNSDNSSECsigned and validated
- Yes: RFC 7672 TLSA records on MX hostsDANEall
- No: Brand logo record (not scored)BIMInone
- No: RFC 6186 and RFC 8314 service records (not scored)SRVnone
IMAP
Not offered.
POP3
Not offered.
SMTP submission
Not offered.
Capabilities are what each server advertises before login. How these tests work