2024: The year of growth for Tuta
As 2024 comes to an end, we’d like to take some time to reflect on our growth, our achievements, our fight for privacy, and what to expect in 2025.
Tuta’s key achievements in 2024
⚡ A growing team: Tuta has seen its fastest growth in 2024
⚡ Better security: Released post-quantum encryption
⚡ A new app: Tuta launched a calendar app, also on F-Droid
⚡ We rebranded: New logo, new website, new creative direction
⚡ Hello Munich: Tuta opened its second office
⚡ Many new features: Preview & quick actions on email notifications, improved contact import, contact integration for all apps, calendar search
Better privacy and security
In 2024 Tuta released post-quantum encryption for email and calendars!
We strive to provide services with top-notch privacy and security measures. At Tuta, we know that to deliver this and protect your data, we have to constantly improve our encryption and other security measures like DDoS protection. That’s why this year we released the world’s first post-quantum encryption protocol for email and calendar! Initially, Tuta’s quantum-proof encryption was only rolled out for new users, but you’ll be happy to hear that all accounts are currently getting upgraded.
When you choose Tuta, you can have peace of mind knowing that your private data, communications and calendars are protected today and tomorrow, even from threats like “Harvest Now, Decrypt Later”.
New features
2024 also saw a lot of great new features for your encrypted mailbox and calendar that we built to make your experience with our services even smoother on all platforms, like our free desktop clients, but also – and most importantly – on our free mobile apps for Android and iPhone.
Main feature releases in 2024
- Updated encryption algorithms to AES 256
- Launched post-quantum cryptography
- Added search functionality to the calendar
- Full contact integration and contact sync support for the mobile apps
- Improved calendar navigation
- Included a birthday calendar
- Preview in email notifications
- Actions from email notifications like “delete” and “mark read”
- Organize emails by labels (about to be released)
- Support for iOS payment method
New Calendar App
The Tuta Calendar was recently released as a standalone app. You still get the same privacy and the new app is smoothly integrated with Tuta Mail, but now with a better calendar experience.
The Tuta Calendar is the world’s first encrypted calendar that’s quantum safe. This means is that not only is your Tuta mailbox quantum-proofed, but your calendar and personal appointments are as well.
Tuta Calendar was first released integrated in Tuta Mail, but this year we released the calendar as its own app, available for download on iOS, Android, and F-Droid. Since the release, our team has also continued working to improve it and published some nice new features like external calendar sync, .ics import on mobile, a birthday calendar, an improved date picker and new themes. And it’s safe to say, this is just the start of the Tuta Calendar app!
Next, we plan to develop a calendar widget - one of the most requested features in our recent user survey.
Download Tuta Calendar here:
At Tuta, we love open source and F-Droid! Find out more about Tuta Calendar and why we published our new app on F-droid from the start.
A new look
A closer look at Tuta’s new logo.
2024 was also the year that we at Tuta harmonized our look and made it more consistent with our mission of bringing privacy to the world.
Last year, we changed the name from Tutanota to Tuta and this year our rebranding process officially took off! We introduced a brand new logo, updated the design of our website and overall style - of course all with the same values and dedication to privacy at heart!
In fact, our new branding represents our values much better than before: When visiting the Tuta website, you are now welcomed by the message Turn ON Privacy - which is what you achieve at Tuta: You sign up and instantly you secure all your data with encryption so that it stays private.
A growing team and new office
All these new features wouldn’t be possible without our team! This year, 14 new team members joined us – we’re growing faster than ever and our offices in Hanover where no longer large enough for everyone. So, this year, we have opened Tuta’s second office which is located in Munich, Germany.
2024 challenges
Google trying to take us down
In 2024, we at Tuta also saw some of the greatest challenges. In April, Google deranked us from search completely so that people looking for private and secure email or for an encrypted calendar where not able to find our service.
This showed all of us once again the monopolistic power of Google and how dangerous Google’s Search monopoly is. Three months later, our ranking was mysteriously restored and Google never explained to us why this happened or apologized for it.
This has reinforced our decision to build a Gmail alternative that is not only encrypted, but also ethical. At Tuta we are fighting for a better web where everyone’s privacy is respected. That’s what we stand for and what distinguishes us from the masses of online services.
DDoS attacks
We had to face another challenge in December 2024 when some adversary wanted to stop people from using encrypted communications and attacked Tuta with multiple sophisticated DDoS attacks. At Tuta, we are committed to fighting against any adversary: We will never give in, we will never pay any ransom, but instead we do everything possible to protect your data and your privacy. That’s why even during these tough times, we did not change our strategy, and we continued not to use third-party appliances for DDoS protection.
Protecting against DDoS attacks would be much easier if we used third-party scrubbing centers or proprietary devices that require access to decrypted traffic. However, these approaches would come at a significant cost: losing control over sensitive customer data, such as IP addresses and access tokens. This data, if exposed, could allow third parties to impersonate users, delete accounts, or even map IP addresses to specific email accounts, posing a severe risk to user privacy.
At Tuta, we prioritize your trust and confidentiality above all else. That’s why we fend off DDoS attacks without third-party appliances. By keeping all traffic handling in-house, we ensure that your data remains secure and private, safeguarding it from potential misuse or surveillance by third parties.
Your privacy is our commitment, and we will not compromise it for convenience. We thank you for your patience during these difficult times. We can assure you that we have now updated our defense mechanisms so that we can better fend off DDoS attacks.
You can learn more about what happened and how we mitigated the attacks here.
Fighting for privacy
Every time you use encryption, you’re protecting someone who needs it to stay alive - Bruce Schneier.
In addition to improved security and new features, we have also been working hard to continue our fight for privacy through our activism! As a privacy-focused company, we believe it is our duty to not only produce secure tools for you, but to use our voice to actively fight for better laws and privacy for all. This year we have had a strong focus on opposing chat control and put a lot of effort and time into spreading awareness on the topic as well as reaching out to politicians to stop this dangerous draft law.
We are also proactively fighting for your right to encryption, and privacy – no matter your geographic location. This is why we have signed open letters to the EU council explaining that encryption is non-negotiable and highlighting the importance of encryption and to the Australian government urging them to protect end-to-end encryption.
While Germany is one of the best countries for a private service like Tuta, we have to make sure that the political situation stays as is.
We thank you all for your support and for your commitment to fighting for privacy along with us!
What’s next
2024 has been a very successful year for us at Tuta! And we are so happy that you have joined us, supported us, and helped fight for privacy. We have many exciting and big projects planned for 2025 and we can say for sure that next year, you can expect email import and labels – two greatly anticipated features! Of course, that’s not all but we will keep the rest a surprise for now. 😉
Once again, a massive thank you for being with us on this journey! Together we can make the web a better place ❤️🔒
