What happens if my usage exceeds the limits of my plan?
If you downgrade your Proton subscription, it’s important to check that your usage is within the limits of your downgraded plan. If you’re using more storage (or have more users) than your new plan allows, your account access may be limited. If you still have excess data after 12 months, all of your data could be deleted.
Note: The information in this article is for people who have downgraded from a paid Proton subscription with higher limits. If you’ve never had a paid subscription, it’s not possible to exceed the limits of your plan.
If you exceed your plan limits, your account access will be limited
All Proton plans include a set amount of storage. So if you downgrade your subscription, your allocated storage (or number of users, if you were on a group or business plan) will decrease.
That means you may need to remove excess data (or user accounts) to get your usage within the limits of your new plan.
If you’re in excess of your plan limits, we’ll let you know in the app. The following restrictions will also be placed on your account:
Proton Mail:
- You can’t receive new emails, other than from Proton.
- You can’t send emails with attachments.
- You can’t manage your calendar.
Proton Drive:
- Your devices won’t sync with Proton Drive.
- You can’t upload new files.
- You can’t back up photos from your smartphone.
If you previously had an organization with additional users:
- If you added existing Proton accounts to your plan, they will be removed from your organization.
- If you created new members, their storage allowace will be reduced to 0 MB. They won’t be able to use most Proton services.
- If you had a custom domain set up, it will be disabled.
If this isn’t resolved after 12 months, your data could be deleted
Once access to your account is limited, you have one year to resolve the situation. After that, your data (emails, files or members of your organization) risks being deleted.
Given Proton cannot access your data, we can’t selectively delete emails or files. All data will be deleted from the apps where storage limits are exceeded. If the account has additional members inherited from an organization, their accounts and data will also be deleted.
We’re committed to providing free privacy services to all who need them. But in order to provide an ad-free service that doesn’t monetize user data, 12 months is the absolute maximum amount of time that we can store data that isn’t being covered by a paid subscription.
We send multiple email and in-app notifications ahead of time to ensure that affected users are aware of this and have time to resolve the situation.
How to resolve excess usage
If you exceed your Mail or Drive storage quota, you can easily upgrade your account to get more storage and restore normal access to your services. Just make sure your new plan matches your actual usage.
You can also free up space by manually deleting files or email if you are over your Mail and Drive storage limits. By going to your account settings, you can see how much space you’re using in Proton Mail and Proton Drive. You can then delete files to reach your storage quota. Make sure you permanently delete files by emptying the trash to make sure your storage usage is accurately reflected.
If you previously had an organization with members, you can delete them in the settings in order to regain access to the full functionality of your account. If you are an employee encountering limited access to your account, you must contact your administrator to upgrade your organization’s plan.
Was my account downgraded?
If you don’t recall canceling your subscription, your account may have been automatically downgraded. This can happen if:
- You were on a free trial which expired.
- We couldn’t renew your subscription due to a failed payment.