This might come out as a bit of a rant, but I just wanted to post it here anyway since it’s the only social media I use.

Recently, I’ve been making some steps to improve my privacy. GrapheneOS, Linux on my PC, open source software, moving away from Google stuff. So, next logical step was for me to switch away from Gmail. I went with Tutanota, since they’re based in EU, their mobile app is on F-Droid and doesn’t require Google Play Services. So I made an account, switched a bunch of my private account e-mails from Gmail to Tuta, and was basically done. Two days later, I wake up to a “invalid credentials” message. I checked the option to remember my password on my PC, so I thought it was weird. I checked my phone, and it turns out I was logged out of the app too. I tried changing my password with recovery code, thinking something went wrong (though unlikely since I used a password manager), but I got an error on that one too. So I contacted Tutanota, almost a week ago. No response.

I tried looking on various sites to check if people had a similar issue. I found a few reports on Reddit. The moderator of Tuta says to contact the e-mail address that I sent a message to already, but people complained that they haven’t gotten a response either. I found out that similar reports were happening for a while now, accounts being flagged for seemingly no reason. I found one post from October, 2024, from a frustrated user. He said he was in the same situation, and when he finally got the reply, Tutanota said they can’t do anything. When I found that post, I was really disheartened. I’ve already went back on a bunch of accounts to @gmail.com account, for safety, but there is still a few that I’m not even able to access because they use e-mail 2fa. Some of them being accounts for various government public services.

So this one gave me a pause on my privacy journey. I never encountered problems like this one before. A service blocking my account without any message or warning. No contact from support. Being locked out of my accounts. I’ve lost a lot of enthusiasm to replace a few proprietary services that I have left.

  • DJ Putler@lemmy.ml
    0·
    5 months ago

    Lol ya here’s how I use tuta. It’s 90% of the time just a recovery option for other emails that require another email so nothing gets linked. You don’t want to use their app even if its on fdroid its going to make it easy for them to keep track of what you’re up to. Use rethink or foxyproxy to rotate proxies on a mobile browser or tab and open it there, don’t stay logged in. Set reminders on your organization system to periodically login to free blob datacenter emails and clouds. Euros can suck my eggs im not giving them money bc they used the bourgeois state to present a facade of respecting privacy.

  • hornedfiend@sopuli.xyz
    0·
    5 months ago

    I’ve been using tuta for more than 3 years now, paid, and even though it has its drawbacks, it’s a good secure alternative to most providers nowadays.

    I’ve had to deal with support a while back and even though they were not the fastest, they replied on a fairly timely manner.

    I’m sorry to hear you’ve had a bad experience with them.

  • HubertManne@piefed.socialEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    This is what I hate about all email and why I say every so often I would like citizens public email. I mean this could happen with google. We need to have a right to an email address.

    • sem@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      I tried Tudor and proton’s free tier, and I couldn’t deal with how they can’t use a normal email client.

      On the other hand, I’ve been trying to use Thunderbird with my next cloud calendar and it keeps hanging for me on Ubuntu. So maybe trying to use Thunderbird is a recipe for disaster as well. I don’t know what to do.

  • cardfire@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    I’m really sad to hear that you had this experience. I started using Tuta back in April or May and it’s been full featured for me. I also use it for my BitWarden since both can host in EU, and Tuta has been rock solid for me across the last half year.

    I hope that you get to resolution sooner than later, with their support.

  • Gnomie@lemmy.world
    0·
    5 months ago

    I also had a problem a few years ago with Tutanota and when I emailed for help, no response. I just gave up and accepted that those emails were lost forever. I now have Protonmail and I’ve been happy with them.

  • ook@discuss.tchncs.de
    0·
    5 months ago

    To be fair though, the exact same thing can happen to you on gmail too. They are not unknown to immediately block your account if something flags it to them and getting a quick response there is not a given either.

    • BeerEnjoyer@lemmy.zipOP
      0·
      5 months ago

      I guess that’s true. This might make me question using some online services and providers altogether if I can avoid it. For example, I don’t think I’ll ever use an online password manager and just stick with local one. Having a situation like this with Bitwarden/Proton Pass would be a nightmare.

      • tuff_wizard@aussie.zone
        0·
        5 months ago

        Search selfhosted on Lemmy and reddit. Take control of your own data and also lean why so many choose not to.

        • ook@discuss.tchncs.de
          0·
          5 months ago

          E-mail seems a divisive topic on that though. You find either people who say, selfhosted my mail for 4 decades already, never ran into issues! While the other end of the spectrum is not to ever ever eeever try selfhosting e-mail, it is not worth it.

          • Diurnambule@jlai.lu
            0·
            5 months ago

            It heavily depend on you internet provider too. In France if you use orange you will have many trouble self hosting, they split IP to multiple users, and your livebox disconnect your IP and port range you were on change. For some time I have to pay for a tiny vps to manage orange port redirections. And emails need some specific DNS configuration which they never did for me. My actual provider is great for self hosting, I sent them an email and the created all the required DNS entry to make hosting email possible.

          • tuff_wizard@aussie.zone
            0·
            5 months ago

            Yeah it certainly is. I do feel that the people who claim to have had no problems don’t send much email. It’s easy to receive email.

            I pay purely mail 10usd to host mine but it’s my work email so I can’t afford any fuck ups (more than I already make)

          • DiamondOrthodox@lemmy.mlEnglish
            0·
            5 months ago

            I self-hosted my email for several years. It was fairly easy, asides from some HTTPS cert issues that I had to correct (and took ages to propagate). But I switched away - I don’t have the expertise to ensure it was safe and secure.

      • [object Object]@lemmy.world
        0·
        5 months ago

        Regarding email, consider buying a personal domain for your email address. You specify the ip addresses of the email provider in the domain’s DNS, and on the provider’s side specify that the domain is for your email box. This way, if the email provider doesn’t work out, you only need to change the DNS records to another provider, instead of changing the email address on accounts (which is often impossible).

        However, not all email providers support custom domains, and some only do that on paid tiers.

        • notfromhere@lemmy.ml
          0·
          5 months ago

          If you do this, make sure to have a backup email on a different provider for all of your domain and DNS services in case something goes wrong you can still fix it. I’ve heard horror stories…

  • MrSulu@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    Sorry to hear this, what a nightmare.
    If your old Gmail account lives, my thought is to carry on using that with auto forwarding to a fresh Tuta account and see how that goes, using the fresh Tuta and copying to old Gmail for redundancy / fallback. Thats what I did

  • Da Oeuf@slrpnk.net
    0·
    5 months ago

    Does this happen when you log in via your browser as well as when using a client app?

  • Obinice@lemmy.world
    0·
    5 months ago

    If they “can’t do anything” on their own service then how can they be trusted at all?

    They’re either lying outright, or are so deeply incompetent that they don’t know how their own software works and can’t touch it to try to resolve a problem for fear of breaking something.

  • niartenyaw@midwest.socialEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    I’m really sorry this happened to you OP.

    I would really recommend that you consider getting a custom domain for your email. many are not that expensive and if you do, then you can just point that domain at whatever email provider you want without changing your email on the services.

    in this scenario, it would let you setup that domain on another provider and at least get access to any emails going forward.

    • Scrollone@feddit.it
      0·
      5 months ago

      A good and super cheap hosting provider for emails is PurelyMail, albeit it’s based in the US