ProtonMail encrypted mail service adds support for Apple Mail, Outlook and Thunderbird

Mr. Robot’s email service of choice just expanded its support for a handful of popular email clients. ProtonMail just introduced a new tool, called ProtonMail Bridge, that could expand its relatively niche appeal to more mainstream users who aren’t yet comfortable with giving up their email client habits.

ProtonMail, built around the encryption standard known as PGP (Pretty Good Privacy), previously required users to use its own apps or webmail service. Now, users loyal to common mail clients Apple Mail, Thunderbird, Outlook or anything else that supports IMAP and SMTP can run ProtonMail Bridge in the background to enable a ProtonMail account to play nice with one of those newly supported clients.

The process maintains the core offerings of ProtonMail: end-to-end encryption, meaning that only a sender and receiver can view an email, and zero-access encryption, meaning that the email provider can’t see your emails even if it wanted to.

“The best part is that this does not require modifying your email client or making changes to your existing workflow,” the company writes in its announcement. “Use email like you have always used it, and the Bridge will automatically encrypt and decrypt messages in the background.”

ProtonMail notes that Bridge users will enjoy some added convenience, including the ability to do full body text searches and to manage multiple accounts. While ProtonMail is a useful if not perfect encrypted email client, the company reminds users, as always, that encrypted email won’t save you if anyone gains access to your device itself.