Proton Pass Free: Unlimited Vault, Capped Aliases
The vault is uncapped and the devices are unlimited. What Proton limits instead are aliases and 2FA codes - which is an unusual place to draw the line.
On this page
Most free password managers restrict the obvious thing: how many passwords you can keep, or how many devices you can keep them on. Proton restricts neither.
Unlimited entries, logins, identities and notes. Unlimited devices.
What it caps instead is the stuff around the vault, and that turns out to be a more interesting place to draw the line.
The two numbers that matter
Ten hide-my-email aliases.
Three 2FA items.
Everything else on the free plan is effectively unbounded. These two are not, and both bite in a specific way.
Why ten aliases runs out
Hide-my-email is Proton's standout feature and the reason a lot of people choose Pass over Bitwarden. Instead of giving a site your real address, you generate a unique alias that forwards to you. If it leaks or starts getting spam, you delete that one alias and the problem ends.
It is a genuinely good idea, and the habit it encourages is to use one for everything.
That habit consumes ten aliases in about a fortnight. Newsletters, a shop you used once, three trials, a forum, a food delivery app — and you are out, on the feature you came for.
So the free alias allowance is best understood as a sample rather than a quota. Spend them deliberately on the accounts where a leak would actually matter, and use your real address for the rest, or you will hit the ceiling on things you have already forgotten about.
Why three 2FA items is awkward
Storing two-factor codes in the same app as your passwords is a trade-off people disagree about — it is more convenient and it puts both factors in one basket. Proton offers it, capped at three on free.
Three is an odd number to be given. It is enough to be useful and not enough to be your system, which means you end up running two authenticators: Proton for three accounts, and a separate app for everything else.
Two authenticators is worse than one in both directions — more to set up, more to migrate, and a real risk of losing track of which codes live where when you change phones.
If you want codes in your password manager, this is a paid feature in practice. If you would rather keep factors separate, the cap costs you nothing and you can ignore it.
Sharing is the household decision
Secure vault sharing and secure link sharing are both Pass Plus.
Which makes free Proton Pass a single-person product. The storage is unlimited and the audience is one. For a couple wanting a shared vault of household logins, the free tier does not do it at any volume.
That is the same line Bitwarden draws, and a slightly stricter one than LastPass, whose free tier includes one-to-one sharing.
What Plus adds
- Unlimited hide-my-email aliases, custom-domain aliases, extra alias mailboxes, and sending email from an alias.
- Secure vault sharing and secure link sharing.
- A built-in 2FA authenticator with unlimited codes.
- Dark web monitoring, file attachments, advanced account protection, Emergency Access and a command line interface.
Emergency Access is the one with consequences beyond convenience — it decides whether anyone can reach your vault if you cannot, which is covered in who gets into your vault if you cannot.
The exit is the best in the category
One reason to take Proton seriously even on the free tier: it has the cleanest documented way out of any password manager except Bitwarden.
Our Proton Pass exit report scores it 25 out of 30, and the standout is a PGP-encrypted ZIP containing JSON — an open encryption standard wrapped around structured data. That means you can keep a backup of your entire vault on a disk without the backup being a readable list of your passwords.
The deduction is the mobile block: you cannot export from the Proton Pass mobile apps at all, so a phone-only user has to find a desktop before they can take anything out.
Who it suits
A single person who wants unlimited storage across unlimited devices, values email aliases enough to use them sparingly, and keeps two-factor codes somewhere else.
Anyone sharing with a partner, generating aliases freely, or wanting one app for passwords and codes is looking at Plus — and should price it against Bitwarden Premium, which draws its own free-paid line in a different place.
Both are compared alongside the rest in what happens to your passwords when you stop paying.
Questions people ask
How many passwords can you store on Proton Pass Free?
There is no cap. Proton documents the free plan as including unlimited entries, logins, identities and notes. Unlike LastPass there is also no device restriction - the free plan documents unlimited devices.
How many email aliases do you get on Proton Pass Free?
Ten hide-my-email aliases. That is the real ceiling on the free plan, and it arrives sooner than people expect if you adopt the habit of using a fresh alias per signup - ten covers a month of enthusiasm, not a year of it.
Can you use Proton Pass as a 2FA authenticator for free?
For up to three items. Free accounts are limited to three 2FA items; Pass Plus includes a built-in authenticator with unlimited codes. Three covers your most important accounts and no more, so plan which three rather than filling them at random.
Can you share passwords on Proton Pass Free?
No. Secure vault sharing and secure link sharing are both Pass Plus features. For a household wanting one shared vault, that is the restriction that decides it - the storage is free and the sharing is not.
Is Proton Pass Free better than Bitwarden Free?
They cap different things. Both give unlimited items across unlimited devices for one person. Bitwarden puts file attachments and emergency access behind Premium; Proton puts aliases, sharing and 2FA codes behind Plus. If you want built-in email aliases, Proton; if you want 2FA codes in the manager, neither free tier serves you well.
Where this information comes from
Product details change often. Each item below links to the primary source we checked, so you can confirm anything that matters to your decision.
Spotted something out of date or incorrect? Tell us and we will fix it.