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Proton Mail has limited third-party IMAP support. You typically connect standard mail clients through Proton Mail Bridge or a paid plan. Bridge is a desktop app that exposes standard IMAP/SMTP locally. Free accounts can use it.
  • Username: Proton Mail address
  • Password: Generated in the Bridge UI—not your Proton login password
1

Install Bridge

Download and install Proton Mail Bridge from the Proton website.
2

Sign in and get credentials

Sign in to Bridge and copy the IMAP/SMTP username and password it generates for your mail client.
3

Configure your client

Enter the local address and Bridge credentials in your mail client. Keep Bridge running while you use the client.

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Option 2: Paid direct IMAP/SMTP

Proton Mail Plus and other paid plans support direct connection to imap.proton.me. See Proton’s official IMAP documentation for current settings.
Free Proton Mail does not support direct third-party IMAP. Use Bridge instead.

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Frequently asked questions

Proton’s servers only see end-to-end encrypted mail. Bridge runs on your computer, holds your decryption key, and exposes a standard IMAP/SMTP interface locally. Without Bridge, third-party clients cannot decrypt your mail.
Bridge itself is free to install, but requires a paid Proton plan (Mail Plus, Unlimited, or Business). It’s not available on the free Proton tier.
Not out of the box — Bridge serves IMAP on 127.0.0.1 (localhost). A client running in the cloud cannot reach your local Bridge without a tunnel (e.g. WireGuard, Tailscale) or a self-hosted client on the same machine as Bridge.