The most popular email platforms that people use are free. But, nothing is actually free. As you use these services, the email providers harvest your data for advertising purposes to earn revenue. Your data can be misused if it falls into the wrong hands, so it’s understandable that many people are not comfortable with this arrangement. This cohort seeks alternative secure email platforms, and Thexyz is one of the best such solutions.
Thexyz is an email hosting company based in Toronto, Canada. It has provided secure email hosting for over 15 years, giving it valuable experience in protecting user data. It provides direct secure email hosting services and also offers a free, open-source email tool that you can host on your own servers. Our review focuses on the former.
Thexyz boasts over 40,000 users across 100 countries. That’s not so much compared to the user figures of several competitors, but note that bigger doesn’t always mean better.
Thexyz: Plans and pricing
Thexyz doesn’t offer a free plan, which is a disadvantage compared to the competition, but its pricing plans are relatively affordable. It offers a basic Premium Webmail plan for $2.95 per month or a discounted rate of $29.95 annually. This plan grants you access to basic features, including 25 GB of storage for your emails.
The next plan, MobileSync + Cloud Drive, costs $4.95 monthly or a discounted rate of $49.95 annually. As the name suggests, this plan allows you to sync your contacts, calendars, and files to your smartphones and desktops. It also adds an extra 30 GB of cloud storage.
The highest plan, Unlimited Email Archiving, costs $9.95 per month or a discounted rate of $10.9.95 annually. As the name suggests, this plan gives you unlimited storage to archive your emails.
There’s no free trial for any plan, which we consider a disadvantage.
Thexyz: Features
Thexyz offers many valuable features, including
End-to-end email encryption
End-to-end encryption is a security protocol that prevents any third party from accessing information while it’s in transit. Your emails are encrypted on Thexyz’s mail servers and can only be decrypted on the recipient’s mail server. If anyone intercepts the content in transit, it’ll be useless because they don’t possess the decryption keys.
End-to-end encryption means that even Thexyz’s administrators can not access your data. Neither can they provide it to any legal body that requests it.
This platform also incorporates digital signatures to verify the authenticity of incoming emails. This feature ensures that you don’t receive any malicious email impersonating an address that you usually interact with.
Cloud storage
Users on the MobileSync + Cloud Drive storage have access to 30 GB of extra cloud storage to keep their files. They can store photos, videos, audio, etc., and retrieve them on any other device with the correct login details. You can also share your files with other Thexyz users, e.g., with colleagues in your workplace.
Calendar
You get access to a calendar to plan your schedule. You can create multiple calendars for different purposes, e.g., one for workdays and another for weekdays. You can share your calendars with friends, families, or any other third party you wish to share them with.
Chat
Thexyz gives users an instant messaging tool. You can exchange messages with other Thexyz users within your webmail interface. Just like the main platform, all your messages are end-to-end encrypted, so third parties can’t access them.
Alias
An alias is an extra email address that forwards to your main address. It’s a creative way to interact with people or platforms without giving out your main address. Thexyz allows you to create as many aliases as you want, e.g., John+edu@thexyz.com for academic matters, John+ecommerce@thexyz.com for online shopping messages, John+work@thexyz.com for work emails, and so on.
Contacts
This platform gives you a tool to store and manage your contacts. You can create new contacts any time you want and retrieve the information when needed. You can sync contacts across your devices and access them conveniently.
Email migration
One of the main reasons people are hesitant to switch to a secure email provider is the difficulty of migrating their content. However, Thexyz offers a fully managed migration tool to make it easier. You just need to provide your password, and the tool can import all your email contents to Thexyz. It’s not free though; you’ll pay a one-time fee of $9.95 for this service.
This tool allows you to transfer data from any mail environment, including Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Fastmail, etc. There’s no limit on the amount of data you can import.
Thexyz: Interface and use
Thexyz has a simple interface that you’ll likely find easy to understand and navigate. The interface is minimal and uncluttered, with features neatly arranged. You can access this platform via the web or download the mobile app on an iOS and Android device.
Thexyz: Support
Thexyz offers direct customer support via email. You can open a ticket on the website and wait for an email response. Alternatively, you can reach out to the support email directly and wait for a response.
Thexyz also gives you access to complimentary support resources including user guides, FAQs, and tutorials about different features.
Thexyz: Competition
Tutanota is the main competitor to Thexyz that we’d like to highlight. It offers similar features to Thexyz, including end-to-end encryption, custom domains, and a calendar tool. The pricing plans are also similar, starting from $3.60 per month for 20 GB of storage and three custom domains.
Thexyz: Final verdict
Thexyz is a good secure email provider for individuals and businesses. It’s not as popular as rivals like Tutanota and Proton Mail but it gives you solid encryption and protects your data. There’s no free plan or free trial, but the pricing plans are relatively affordable.
