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GMX Email Review

GMX

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.”
  6. 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.

50 comments
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  1. John Rives
    John Rives September 25, 2024 at 11PM

    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?



  2. Steve
    Steve September 21, 2024 at 10AM

    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?



  3. LMC
    LMC February 1, 2024 at 4AM

    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



  4. Stu
    Stu October 8, 2023 at 5PM

    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.



  5. Jeff
    Jeff July 20, 2023 at 6PM

    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.



  6. John Po
    John Po April 17, 2023 at 4PM

    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.



  7. David Steele
    David Steele September 27, 2022 at 11AM

    I have been using GMX for over 5 years now and have never had any issues with the email or the company.



  8. C Prince
    C Prince September 20, 2022 at 1PM

    Fails to look into allegations of phishing



  9. Juste Moi
    Juste Moi September 6, 2022 at 9PM

    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.



  10. Liam Clancy
    Liam Clancy May 4, 2022 at 6PM

    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.



  11. PISSED OFF
    PISSED OFF March 12, 2022 at 5AM

    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.



  12. charlie
    charlie March 2, 2022 at 9PM

    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.



  13. Vaughn Lanter
    Vaughn Lanter December 5, 2021 at 7PM

    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.



  14. Kris Ari
    Kris Ari November 21, 2021 at 10PM

    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.



  15. hamster
    hamster September 27, 2021 at 4PM

    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



  16. Ben
    Ben September 18, 2021 at 3AM

    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.



  17. Jerry Stiles
    Jerry Stiles July 6, 2021 at 4PM

    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.



  18. Henry
    Henry May 19, 2021 at 6PM

    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.


      1. Stu
        Stu December 21, 2021 at 11AM

        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……………



      2. Mashhour
        Mashhour June 7, 2021 at 12PM



  19. Dave W
    Dave W April 7, 2021 at 1PM

    It appears that GMX is randomly blocking accounts. They just blocked mine, despite it being extremely uninteresting and low usage. No warning, no discussion, no recourse, no ability to get one’s data back. Pretty disgraceful all around. I see that lots of negative reviews are going up on TrustPilot around this issue (including one from me!). I have warned all my friends not to use them. If GMX is the only copy of your emails, you should start to worry! I was fortunate that I download all my emails to my laptop, so the damage they did to me was limited to wasting my time.



  20. Jeff
    Jeff March 7, 2021 at 4PM

    I’ve been using GMX for 10 years and it’s been reliable and easy to use. The only complaint is now the free version now gets a lot of advertisement; but I guess that’s the price of a free service.



  21. Patrick McMaster
    Patrick McMaster February 17, 2021 at 1PM

    Where have these people got this rubbish from! I’ve used GMX for 10 years and never had a problem. One of the few systems that allow you to create mutiple folders and then set up filtering “rules” to direct emails to folders based on your criteria of sender, contents etc etc, including “spam”, auto deletion and forwarding on. GMX makes Gmail look like “Email for Dummies”!


      1. doug
        doug January 6, 2022 at 3PM

        just because something didn’t happen to you doesn’t make other people’s experiences rubbish. In fact the only rubbish is someone so self centered they believe they are the sun and we are the planets revolving around them. That’s you



      2. PISSED OFF
        PISSED OFF March 12, 2022 at 5AM

        That’s all fine and dandy until YOUR ACCOUNT IS GONE WITH NO WARNING because you didn’t sign in ‘often enough’ for GMX’s robot ruler, and you are told

        there ‘is no data to recover’, when you reach out to ‘customer service’!




  22. Vigi
    Vigi February 17, 2021 at 9AM

    We have used GMX mail for some 5 years and found it to be excellent. IMAP with linux thunderbird, android app and very generous storage. The majority of these posts must be false. Highly recommend it.


      1. Scott Ryan
        Scott Ryan December 20, 2022 at 4PM

        Sorry, Vigi, just because you do not have problems does not mean others do not. I signed up several years ago, only the web based email worked, and I had difficulty setting that up, had to contact cust service several times. (they were not all that responsive, but as a free email service from a different country, it was not unreasonable)

        But suddenly that one no longer would log in; and I never did get it working with Thunderbird (Mac) using either IMAP or POP3. (since I already had an icloud account with Mail, I just ended up using only that on that Mac Desktop. (My work computer))




  23. Morris Workman
    Morris Workman February 5, 2021 at 4PM

    All kinds of problems signing up for gmx. Have repeatedly received errors. The system finally set up my account, then immediately blocked it. Had to send email for help. They dealt with it about 12 hour later. Tried to set up an account for my wife, ran into same problem with errors when trying to register. You get what you pay for.



  24. Rob Wigham
    Rob Wigham January 23, 2021 at 9PM

    Been using it for years with no problems and excellent service. Highly recommended. There’s no spam whatsoever either – I don’t recognise many of the posts here which are clearly pedaling rubbish; for what reasons I can only guess. It’s a reliable service that I’ve stayed with for many years.


      1. Scott Ryan
        Scott Ryan December 20, 2022 at 5PM

        Interesting. You don’t recognize many of the posts here? Don’t recognize the people? Why do you think they are peddling rubbish? Just because it works for you does not mean that is true for others. Possibly it is because of where you are. I am in the USA, and I assume you are not because of ‘recognize’ and I had difficulty signing up several years ago, then at some point the account vanished. (On my work computer)

        And I never did get it to work this year (2022) on the laptop, so I just gave up. I do say I would trust the company to not sell my information, unlike others, so I am disappointed was not able to get it working. Glad it works properly for you.




  25. Amy Petrowski
    Amy Petrowski January 19, 2021 at 8AM

    They are scammers I think. They took my information and ran literally within a minute and close my account. Don’t do it



  26. Amy Petrowski
    Amy Petrowski January 19, 2021 at 8AM

    I wish I would have read the person who commented before me message. I agree with them stay away too many red flags pretty sure they’re selling information. Or more God only knows what’s going to happen to me now needless to say opened an account granted it for about a minute but then immediately the count to shut down for no good reasons never had an account with the company never heard of them before message the company still denied really seems like a scandal My recommendation is too many red flags run like the other person said just run Don’t end up like me I don’t know what’s going to happen out of this but I’m concerned that my information is just been sold. It’s a scam beware



  27. Former GMX User
    Former GMX User December 18, 2020 at 2PM

    Stay away from GMX (and web.de) freemail. As has already been mentioned they delete user data – in my case the ENTIRE email history up until a month ago. Support can only be contacted by phone, currently at a rate of 4 EUR per minute (be prepared to be kept in the loop)…which I consider daylight robbery for such a heavily Ad financed service (they spam you with newsletters, Ads between your emails and everywhere else on the web UI). Unfortunately support is also not in a position (or unwilling) to actually help you with recovery of data they deleted. my recommendation: get your own domain name so you can switch service providers whenever you want without changing your email address…myself being a satisfied user of protonmail now.


      1. doug
        doug January 6, 2022 at 3PM

        protonmail is a far bigger disaster than this. Can’t open any attachments and the support is nonexistent.


          1. Violet
            Violet January 17, 2022 at 4AM

            Protonmail support does exist. I have contacted them about my problems. I think that they quit supporting my browser because I cannot permanently delete anything nor add contacts to email. They told me to look at the list of browsers that they support. I am looking to move on.


              1. byron
                byron May 24, 2022 at 8AM

                I agree about the mobile phone requirement, it’s ridiculous, I lost email accounts because when I set them up years ago I didn’t have one, and now it’s the only way to get back into them if they get blocked due to trying to access them when on holiday in another country.






  28. Yanta
    Yanta December 9, 2020 at 8AM

    GMX actually blocks VPNs… I can’t even sign up because my VPN is blocked.



  29. Monty
    Monty October 12, 2020 at 7PM

    Two days I checked my GMX a/c that I used for all of my personal email. It worked in the morning and later in the afternoon I checked again. It no longer worked so I went to GMX help. Over the next two days, every time I contacted them I got the same useless messages. Tried their password recovery and was told my a/c doesn’t exist. Their help is of no use. I then tried to open up a new address but because I am currently in Mexico, they won’t let me open up a new a/c. At that point I gave up with GMX – never again will I use them.



  30. Thomas
    Thomas August 23, 2020 at 8AM

    I deleted my account back in 2008 and my name was no longer able to be registered. A few years later my name was still blocked, I’d say that is good security. I contacted customer service and with some security checks I got my name / email address reinstated. Been using them for years. Never hacked and yes there is customer service and they are polite and helpful.



  31. Sad Lady
    Sad Lady June 27, 2020 at 11AM

    Be warned – will delete your account for no reason. Sentimental loss of data is devastating. Customer service won’t do anything but just tell you they have blocked it and can’t change it; no matter how you beg or can prove it’s your personal account.



  32. Art Northrup, Jr.
    Art Northrup, Jr. January 20, 2020 at 11AM

    Since it’s such a pain to tell everyone you communicate with by email to stop using a particular email address for you & use a different one I haven’t deleted by GMX account yet, but I will have to. As I previously stated, GMX has ZERO customer service — you will never get a response from GMX & any problem you encounter you’ll have to figure out how to deal with yourself.


      1. bob
        bob January 14, 2021 at 3AM

        you should probably just sign up for gmail Art so to avoid confusing emails.


          1. bob
            bob January 14, 2021 at 3AM

            Artie has been lost for the last twenty years, forgive him. Anyway…thank you gmx for almost 20 years of email security and everything that entails. thank you!


              1. doug
                doug January 6, 2022 at 3PM

                yes Bob, another person who dismisses the experiences of others becuause it wasn’t his experience. pathetic.






  33. Art Northrup, Jr.
    Art Northrup, Jr. November 7, 2019 at 5PM

    GMX has ZERO customer service. The ONLY method of contact is a form to fill out & submit, which I have done FOUR times over the past 24 hours. NO response of any kind. With no customer service GMX is WORTHLESS.



  34. Alberta
    Alberta May 25, 2019 at 5PM

    GMX is a good option. I wouldn’t use it for anything sensitive because they are not great, just a decent option. I would use them as an email I can use to subscribe to different newsletter for example, nothing more.



  35. Antoinette J. Reed
    Antoinette J. Reed April 6, 2019 at 12PM

    We’ve had challenges in the past especially with the encryption of these servers as most of them do not consider all the angle this can take so I’d like to know if GMX mail supports HTTPS and uses TLS with ephemeral key exchange to encrypt all internet traffic between users and their servers. Thanks



  36. Spi Kla
    Spi Kla February 19, 2019 at 11PM

    GMX is really popular here in Germany. The ads can get a little annoying at times, but there are other providers that are much worse. Great security as well, so I highly recommend it!



  37. ARUN NEWAR
    ARUN NEWAR January 29, 2019 at 11AM

    Very helpful. Now I’m able to attach up to 50 MB of files to my sent emails

    Thank you GMX. LOVE YOU


      1. Esko Emil
        Esko Emil October 1, 2021 at 6PM

        I’ve been using GMX for many years, negative thing in it is if you send GMX email to some one who has free Outlook email adress it goes to Outlook spam folder.



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