Encrypted Email - Mailfence

I chose this app specifically because of its stated commitment to privacy and encryption, but my experience creating a new account undermines that promise. During signup the service rejected my registration with a vague error claiming “potential abuse,” and listed several possible causes: country/IP flagged, disposable recovery email, or my browser being outdated. None of those applied — I was using a mainstream iPhone browser, a legitimate recovery address on a privacy-focused provider, and a consistent IP (I temporarily used Cloudflare WARP for privacy). The registration failed because the username was one character too long, which is minor, but the final rejection screen explicitly blocks signups when it detects privacy tooling, disposable emails, or networks with good security practices. That is the opposite of what a privacy-first service should do. Why this matters: Privacy-first users intentionally use VPNs, secure DNS, anti-tracking tools, and privacy-focused recovery addresses. Penalizing these behaviors excludes the very people the app claims to protect. Forced use of non-private recovery channels or blocking secure browsers increases fingerprintability and metadata exposure, undermining the advertised protections. The error messaging is unhelpful and non-actionable. It lists multiple possible causes without indicating which one actually triggered the block, leaving users guessing and unable to resolve the issue without trial-and-error or contacting support. Concrete suggestions: Make the rejection reason specific — tell the user which trigger caused the block (IP reputation, disposable email, browser fingerprint, etc.) and provide clear next steps. Allow account creation from common privacy setups (VPNs, WARP, secure browsers) or provide a documented, privacy-respecting verification path for those users. Stop requiring a non-privacy recovery option as the only way to proceed; allow a secondary account on privacy providers or verified phone alternatives that don’t force broader linkage. Publish a short support page explaining why signups are blocked and how privacy-minded users can legitimately complete registration without weakening their privacy posture. Add a grace period and human review for plausible false positives so legitimate users aren’t permanently locked out. My expectation from a privacy-focused app is that they design onboarding to accommodate — not punish — privacy and security choices. Please fix the signup flow, clarify error messages, and provide an alternate verification path that doesn’t require users to choose between account access and their privacy tools.

It’s a basic email client. Nothing special here. It does the job. However, when composing an email the app always scrolls your text off the screen every time you type a letter. This cannot be fixed with settings. It happens on every email, and scrolling manually only temporarily lets you read what you’re typing until you start typing again. I give two stars due to this significantly interfering with a core function of an email client.