How your account and mail are protected
Signing in
- Your password, and a second factor: an authenticator app or a security key. Nobody else, administrators included, knows your password.
- Mail programs never get your password: each one has an app password of its own, which you can revoke from the panel.
- Changes to your account (password, recovery key, new app passwords) are notified to your contact address, outside the platform.
What mail encryption protects
- Your stored mail is encrypted with keys that open only with your password, an app password or the recovery key. Administrators do not have them.
- It protects disks and backups while the server is off, and against anyone who reads the files without your password.
- It does not protect against someone who controls the server while it is running and you are signed in, nor the metadata: senders, recipients, dates, subjects.
- If you lose both your password and your recovery key, your stored mail is lost. Nobody will be able to recover it.
For the most sensitive content use end-to-end encryption (OpenPGP) or the platform's encrypted channels.
If you lose access
- A forgotten password: the recovery key sets a new one, from the sign-in page.
- A lost second factor: sign in with one of your backup codes, if you generated them (Security, Second factor); otherwise the administrators reset it, after checking who you are.
- Backup codes stand in for the second factor only; the recovery key stands in for the password, and keeps your mail. They are two different things: keep both.
- Both password and recovery key lost: the stored mail cannot be read by anyone any more; the administrators can give you a new, empty mailbox.