Many email service-providing companies promote their products by ascribing buzzwords such as “reliable”, “secure”, and “safe” to said products. However, each of those adjectives is open to interpretation. Furthermore, a number of those same companies are not secure email clients.
Secure email clients place a premium on data protection and their users’ right to privacy. If you are interested in using a secure email client, it is important to remember that these clients differ in quality, price, and performance. When undertaking this GMX email review, we kept the three aforementioned qualities in mind. It is our goal to illustrate the features and functions of GMX mail so that you are able to make an informed decision when choosing an email service provider.
The digital exchange of information has shaped the way that individuals, corporate entities, and governmental bodies communicate, making data-protection a necessity of the utmost importance. A VPN (Virtual Private Network) allows its users to send or receive information through a closed, shielded system of servers that employ an extremely high level of data encryption. When VPNs are utilized within the framework of an email service provider, users can rest assured that their communications are shielded.
A secure email client usually incorporates a mixture of VPN technologies. Having this knowledge under your proverbial belt, how many major email service providers can you think of that utilize VPNs? The answer is “not many,” unfortunately. Major corporations that provide a digital communication platform free-of-charge with regards to monetary price do so at the expense of their users” security, privacy, and personal information – the latter of which is not only monetized but often shared with a number of third-party entities that the user may or may not be aware of.
“When VPNs are utilized within the framework of an email service provider, users can rest assured that their communications are shielded”
A brief history of GMX and its mail services
Along with Mail.com, GMX (Global Mail eXchange) Mail is a subsidiary of Germany-based United Internet. GMX mail is popular with users within continental Europe, the UK, and the United States. Before delving into the “features” segment of this GMX email review, we thought that an overview of the company’s history would give both current and prospective GMX customers a better understanding of the product.
GMX Mail was founded in 1997 – making the service more than 20 years old. From the booming dot-com bubble up to the modern era of memes and apps, GMX Mail appears to have successfully adapted within a fast-paced global technological landscape, positioning itself amongst some of its more well-known contemporaries as a pioneer in internet communications.
What can GMX’s features do for you?
MX mail provides a platform that is both accommodating and easy to navigate. While GMX Mail offers the basic amenities and services that the everyday email user has come to expect, there are a few key areas that the service really shines:
- Attachments and Storage: GMX Mail goes above and beyond when it comes to providing storage space for its users. The maximum size for attached files (whether a single file or a group of files) per email is 50 MB. More than double the size (25 BM) of Gmail and Yahoo Mail. GMX’s Cloud feature also provides a comfortable 2GB of free storage.
- Interface: GMX Mail has an interface that is both familiar and easily navigated. Utilizing a blue and white color scheme, the website is easy on the eyes – useful if you spend more than a few moments checking emails. This aesthetic ease-of-use is carried from the website into the official GMXapp, which has been optimized for both smartphones and tablets – iPhone and Android alike.
- Contact importing: a major gripe that many email users have with their email service providers is the difficulty they face when having to import contacts. GMX allows for its users to directly add contacts to their address books from a number of locations, including Facebook. We find this feature ideal for both individuals and businesses, as contacts and customers are usually spread across multiple platforms.
- Language: this was an area of positive interest for users of GMX Mail. Services are provided in Eglish, German, Spanish, and French. Despite other email service providers having multi-language functions, we felt that GMX Mail’s implementation was extremely smooth and glitch-free. Also, there did not appear to be any major differences in the quality of the experience (from a technical standpoint) when toggling between language settings.
- Customer Support: not only was customer support quick, concise and polite, but the overall experience was straightforward and hassle-free. Compared to some of the larger email service providers, GMX provides direct access to a customer service rep. This was extremely refreshing, given that our prior experiences with competitors saw us faced with dead-ends and unhelpful “Community Boards.”
- Price: admittedly, the number one selling point for GMX is its selling point – it’s free! Given all of the features, functions, and elements offered, we were surprised that opening an account was free of charge. While GMX appears to generate its revenue from advertising on its website (the ads range in quality and subject matter), the ads were not intrusive or inappropriate.
“GMX mail provides a platform that is both accommodating and easy to navigate”. Users are also able to manage multiple email addresses under one account and can choose from a number of domain endings. GMX Mail’s premium users are treated to even more options. As first-time GMX users, the above features allowed for an overwhelmingly pleasant experience.
GMX Prioritises User Safety
GMX Mail was bug-free, glitch-free, and had received very little spam compared to other email service providers that we tested. Our GMX Mail junk folder was usually empty, and the majority of our email correspondence that we received was authorized and valid. Knowing that all of our correspondence was encrypted was the icing on the metaphorical e-communications cake. If any issued did happen to arise with regards to user safety or privacy, we took solace in the fact that we could reach a live customer service representative with relative ease.
To anyone using another email service provider at present, we task you do read through the privacy agreement that you signed with the said service provider. We can almost guarantee that you will be looking for an alternative – and after our research, we must say that GMX Mail provides the perfect solution. A company whose product strikes the right balance between meeting market demands, protecting consumers, and presenting its users with a refreshing balance of reliability and accessibility without being clunky or visually unappealing.
Overall, GMX mail met all of our requirements when looking for a new email service provider and surpassed expectation across the board. Moving forward, we are excited to see how GMX develops its product. Hopefully, you have found this GMX email review and its performance has been both informative and helpful.
You can also check our list of the best secure email providers in 2024.
For about a week now, I’ve tried to open a GMX account only to be told that they no longer accounts for US territory. Same thing happened with their mail.com account. They were not the best, and never as bad outlook, gmail or yahoo regarding security and privacy, but not allowing new US accounts feels discriminatory. Should we wait for elon musk to come up with a new psychotic email service or just go for a slow protonmail account?
I have been using it for 4 years without problems, and since then it has not received any spam in my mailbox. But I have never used the original account email address in the web, I only used alias addresses + very strong password with a fixed VPN ip address. So, you also have to do something not blocking your account and be free of spams. I’m maximum satisfied. Fast, reliable, free IMAP, what else do I need?
Been Using the account for six years with virtually no problem. Once not long after I opened the account I was locked out of the account approx. 36 hours for what they deemed suspicious activity. I was frustrated but when they unlocked the account and sent a detailed summary of what they observed, I am glad they took action. I get at most 10 emails a month directed to the Spam folder and have never had a legitimate email sent there. I used to get semi nasty “Nanny” notices telling me I had not logged properly, until after a hundred or so “yes mother” replies I developed the habit of always logging out of all accounts and double checking. Not a bad habit. GMX doesn’t have a problem with my adblockers or Security programs – Gmail did
Both Mine and my Wifes GMX account were hacked in December 2022, I know they were hacked we both received and email supposedly from our own accounts quoting our passwords asking asking for money threatening to send ‘Photo & Videos’ to all those in our address books.
I contacted GMX and they were not interested, just said “I should protect my Account” and not admit it was there servers that were hacked and my data stolen.
We are still getting ‘Spam’ emails, 10 months later!!
I have used a non traceable email address on this comment to make sure No One Else sees my email address…
I am currently on the search for another Email Provider.
How the hell do you upgrade once you have the free account and how do you put download limit on the mail’s downloaded from 3rd party accounts?
I like GMX but could be more intuitive to configure.
I researched email alternatives to gmail and decided on GMX and have been using it for just over a year. I’m very happy with it and while there were a couple glitches initially setting it up it was easily resolved and has been working just fine. I also us a VPN setup on all my devices.
I’m surprised by so many of the comments about problems and not sure why it works so well for some and so poorly for others. I’ve set it up on my computers (desktop and laptop), phone and tablet and all sync together just fine. I have not yet needed to contact support but will give it a try to see how easy it is to get a hold of someone if I need help.
I have been using GMX for over 5 years now and have never had any issues with the email or the company.
Fails to look into allegations of phishing
I am receiving phishing emails from users at their service via GMX.net. I informed them through their contact form but their English-language people insist that, because it’s from their German-language service, I must use a German-language “kontaktformular” instead. I’m unsure why the first people who work for GMX won’t forward my complaint to any other people who work for GMX but rather demand that I do their work for them, but OK I guess I’m the victim so I have to do the legwork. Then the Germans unloaded several pages of German-language technicalities on me and eventually told me (I think? it’s in German) to contact English-speaking people for help. A says, please talk to B — B says, sprechen Sie bitte mit A. Full circle run-around. (Funny thing is, I do speak a little German.) I’m not taking any more time with this slippery organization. They deliberately encourage phishing, IMO.
I literally just signed up last night and already it says because of unusual activity on my account that I need to contact customer service. There’s no activity on the account and Customer Service does not reply what a waste of time.
GMX seems to be in TERRIBLE CONDITION. Email’s are failing to send. Login page now has a ‘blurred consent page’ which you must delete. Inbox failing to load or CRASHING. Emails GETTING LOST after the application crashes. Frequent blank screens for extended periods.
Friends NOT RECEIVING important emails.
I suspect they have STAFF PROBLEMS. The entire set up is falling apart. The HELP Contact us page is now not functioning. In the past the staff replied within hours. After 15 years I am leaving them. Do not trust them if you are a new potential customer.
GMX will STEAL YOUR DATA for themselves while they DESTROY YOUR ACCOUNT if you don’t check it ‘often enough’ for GMX robots. If you don’t read the fine print you might be shocked to find your account gone one day with NO WARNING.
I would like to add my voice to this review as I am extremely disappointed and upset with GMX.
I was a satisfied customer using GMX for ten years, until one day I couldn’t get into my account
and received an error message that my email account DIDN’T EXIST!
My email account was GONE IN A PUFF OF SMOKE WITH NO WARNING.
Everything was connected to this email: MY BANK ACCOUNTS, MY PAYPAL, MY ONLINE BUSINESS, CONTACTS.
I hope GMX get’s hacked into OBLIVION! Don’t waste your precious energy using their ‘services’.
GMX AND IT’S ‘ALGORITHYMS’ WILL DEEM YOU ‘NON-ESSENTIAL’.
Why will Mullvad only work with Windows Defender Firewall enabled?
I have it confirmed from Mullvad that if the W10pRIVACY app disables Telemetry setting’s 2-3 and 5-20, Mullvad will not work. Surely Windows Telemetry settings are sending information home to Microsoft.
I’ve been fighting with GMX for days now. I haven’t been able to see any emails. That’s just too scary. I wish I had read these reviews.
GMX is the first free email I signed up for in the late ’90s. before that, it was Yahoo mail. The reason I moved to GMX is that they gave free of charge POP3 pulling feature to your favourite windows mail client. That was a big deal then. Although the interface in the ’90s was purely in German 🙂 we manage to figure out how to sign up by trial and error.
I still use GMX and I trust them.
If you are planning to move away from Google/Gmail for obvious reasons. GMX is worth considering.
i live in the u.s. and i can not log into my account anymore the pass word was never change i then also lost my back up account a day later and the password was not changed on that ether and this started to happened on 9-25-21 for all of those of you that say you have not lost your account and say rest of us that has lost our accounts that we are conspiracy theorists for saying what has happen to us A. thats how reality works now and days B. has not happen to you yet once it does you join the rest of us naysayers C. its not your turn yet
I’m afraid I’m having the same problems as everyone else here. Just now I signed up for an email account with GMX as part of my De-Googling. As soon as I submitted I was sent straight to an error message saying that their system “has detected irregular activity related to your account” and as a precautionary measure they had blocked my account.
It might be a great service, but it’s a bit of a pain to get your foot in the door.
I have to agree with Henry re: asking gmx support for help, they keep referring you to the password reset page but it doesn’t go there but sends you right back to the ‘contact support’ page. Trying to solve an issue this way just sent me around in circles; complete waste of time. HOWEVER, other than this problem, slow customer support response, I found GMX to be a very good service with few restrictions other secure email providers offer. The site appearance is somewhat off-putting. It looks really old and plain and it seriously needs a facelift to make it more modern and attractive.
LOL reading about all the problems people are having with GMX. I can relate. I signed up for GMX mail about 2 weeks ago. I don’t remember the exact details of what happened, but I couldn’t complete the sign up process. There was some error after giving them all the info on the signup page.
So I just pretty much said “screw it” and forgot about them. After about a week, they sent an email to my Gmail that said my GMX account was set up. Of course I don’t remember my password anymore. So I used the password recovery page to reset my password.
The password recovery page just sent me to a contact support page. So I contacted support. Through my gmail, they gave me a link to the password recovery page which once again leads to the contact support page. After a few emials back and forth, they said they have sent me a new link to a password recovery page. Of course that DIDN’T happen.
As a last ditch effort, I decide to just try their password recovery page once again. And suddenly it worked. It didn’t send me to the contact support page anymore. So I got my GMX mail working now. But I don’t intend on using it. Too many problems already.
Up until last week I have had faultless experience with GMX, I have used customer services a number of times for queries over the 8+ years I have used their service.
However, last week, or sometime before, my account was hacked, I received an email from me(?) quoting my password, eeek!, demanding $500 in bitcoins or they would send a private video recorded by my Webcam, to all my contacts. I thought great I would like to see that video as I don’t have a webcam🤔.
Anyway, it was partly my fault, so I now have a browser generated stronger password and enabled 2-step logon. But then I contacted GMX support and basically they do not want to know that their system has a flaw……………
Hi
I have just created GMX email to test it and they locked my account before even my first login.
I contacted support and they said that they said that technical said your account will remain locked without giving me any justifications. They just take your data (your phone number, your location and you DOB) and sell it.
Recommend not to use this mail service.