Proton Emergency Access lets a paid-plan user nominate trusted contacts who can request delayed access to the user’s Proton Account if illness, death, or another emergency prevents sign-in. The owner chooses a waiting period; they can deny a request while it is pending or approve it sooner. If they do nothing, access is granted when the selected wait ends.
Who can use Proton Emergency Access?
Proton’s current support instructions say the feature is available on all paid Proton plans. Both the account owner and each nominated contact need a Proton Mail email address. The owner can add up to five trusted contacts, according to Proton’s August 28, 2025 announcement.
How to set it up
- Sign in to your Proton Account and open Settings → Recovery.
- Add the trusted contact’s Proton Mail email address and select a waiting period.
- Confirm the change with your Proton password. Proton emails the contact to let them know they have been added.
Proton’s Emergency Access support article currently lists these wait choices: no wait, 1, 2, 3, 7, 14, or 30 days. The available settings may change over time.
How does Proton Emergency Access work?
- The nominated contact signs in to their own Proton Account and requests access through their account’s Settings → Recovery.
- Proton notifies the account owner. During the selected waiting period, the owner can deny the request or approve it early.
- If the owner does not deny the request, access is granted automatically when the waiting period ends. The contact then authenticates with their own account to switch into the trusted account.
Choosing no wait removes the delay, but the owner is still notified and can deny the request or approve it sooner.
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What can a trusted contact access?
Proton’s announcement describes access to Proton data across the account, including emails, passwords, and files; it is not presented as access to only one Proton app. Proton says the data remains end-to-end encrypted and that owners can revoke access or modify their contacts. These are Proton’s descriptions of its feature; the cited materials do not provide an independent assessment of its encryption design or security outcomes.
How this differs from inactivity-based access
Emergency Access is initiated by a person the owner selected: the contact makes a request, and the owner has a chance to veto it during the chosen wait. That differs from an inactivity-triggered process, which is based on an account being unused. Proton presents its feature as account-wide access, rather than access limited to one service. These distinctions describe the documented mechanisms, not a comparison of competing products.
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