Best email app for reading newsletters

The best email app for reading newsletters on a Mac depends on one choice: keep reading them at the address you subscribed with, or move them to a new address in a reading app. To keep your address, Alrighty, Apple Mail, Spark and Gmail each set newsletters apart from the rest of your mail. To move them, HEY puts them in The Feed, and Readwise Reader and Feedbin give you an address just for newsletters.

Most lists for this search are lists of reading apps for the iPhone. They rarely say that each one needs you to change your subscriptions, or which ones run on a Mac. This page answers both for each app. If you want to get rid of newsletters rather than read them, see our guides to the best unsubscribe apps and the best email cleaner apps.

How we checked

We read each app's own feature, help and pricing pages on November 3, 2026, and every fact about another product links to its source. For each app we noted the price, how newsletters get into it, whether it runs on a Mac, and how it sets newsletters apart from your other mail. Alrighty is our app, and it is listed first.

Read newsletters in your inbox, or at a new address?

There are two ways to read newsletters, and the choice decides which apps fit.

In your inbox. Your newsletters keep coming to the address you signed up with. The mail app sorts them out of the way, so your inbox shows people first and newsletters wait in their own list. You change nothing with the senders. This is how Alrighty, Apple Mail, Spark and Gmail work.

At a new address. You subscribe again with an address the reading app gives you, or you set up a forwarding rule in your mail. The reading app then shows newsletters in a reading view, next to articles or feeds. This is how HEY, Readwise Reader and Feedbin work. The cost is setup: each newsletter needs a new subscription or a rule, and a newsletter that changes how it sends can stop arriving.

Pick the first if you mostly want newsletters out of the way of real mail. Pick the second if you read a lot and want a reading app built for long text.

Newsletter apps at a glance

App	Price	How newsletters get in	Runs on Mac	How it sets newsletters apart	AI on by default
Alrighty	14-day trial with no card, then Free or Pro	Your iCloud, Gmail or Outlook inbox	Yes, Apple silicon	Groups you make (Pro)	Your own AI: off until you connect it. Reply drafts and Clean up: on when signed in
Apple Mail	Comes with macOS	Any account in Mail	Yes, built in	Promotions and Updates categories	Summaries, if Apple Intelligence is on
Spark	Free; paid plans from $10 a month	Any account you add	Yes, macOS 12 or later	Newsletters group in the Smart Inbox	Not stated
Gmail	Free	Your Gmail inbox	In a browser	Promotions and Updates tabs	Not covered here
HEY	$99 a year	A new @hey.com address	Yes, Apple silicon and Intel	The Feed	No built-in AI
Readwise Reader	30-day trial, then from $9.99 a month	A Reader address, or forwarding	Yes, desktop app	A Feed next to your saved articles	Not covered here
Feedbin	30-day trial, then $7 a month	A Feedbin address (all paid accounts)	Web, plus Mac reader apps	Next to your RSS feeds	None seen

Alrighty: best for keeping newsletters in the inbox you already use

Alrighty is a desktop mail app for Mac, Windows and Linux that puts iCloud, Gmail and Outlook accounts in one inbox. It does not have a special reading view for newsletters. It reads them as mail, at the address you already use, and gives you two tools: one to sort the newsletters you want, and one to drop the ones you don't.

• Groups (Pro). You make a group, such as "Newsletters," in Settings. Mail that belongs in it leaves the Inbox list and waits in the group's own list. A group sorts in one of two ways. With rules, you say what to match (who it's from, who it's to, or words in the subject or body), and new mail that matches files on your Mac. With AI, you describe what belongs in the group, and Alrighty's AI sorts new mail to fit. A new group looks back at your last 90 days of Inbox mail, and you confirm what it found. A group can sort every account or only the ones you pick.
• Clean up. It lists the senders you likely don't want, including newsletters you never open. A newsletter you open most of the time stays off that list, so the ones you read are safe. You stop the rest all at once.
• Stop mail. One action ends a sender's mail. It unsubscribes in every way the message offers, archives their mail, and moves new mail from them out as it arrives.
• Search. It runs on your Mac and matches what you mean as well as the words, so you can find the issue that covered a topic months ago.

Price. A 14-day trial with no card, then a Free plan or Pro. Groups need Pro. Clean up and Stop mail are on both.

Where your mail goes. Your mail stays with iCloud, Google or Microsoft, and Alrighty keeps its copy and search index on your Mac. Rules groups sort on your Mac. AI groups send the sender, subject and start of the body to Alrighty's server, which asks an AI model. Clean up sends each sender's address and up to 3 of their newest emails to Alrighty's server to sort them. While you're signed in, Clean up runs in the background, and opening a reply starts a suggested draft.

What it can't do. There is no magazine-style reading view, and no place to read web articles next to newsletters. There's no iPhone or web app, so you can't read your groups on your phone in Alrighty. It takes iCloud, Gmail and Outlook accounts only, not Yahoo, AOL, Fastmail or other IMAP. It has no calendar, and it's a new app with no long track record.

Pick it if you want newsletters out of your inbox but at the same address, sorted the way you choose, with the unread ones easy to drop.

Apple Mail: best free choice, with categories built in

Apple Mail comes with every Mac and sorts mail on its own. "The Mail app automatically sorts your email messages into categories to help you find and manage messages more quickly," Apple says, with Primary, Transactions, Updates and Promotions (Apple). Newsletters usually land in Updates or Promotions.

Moving a newsletter. If Mail puts a newsletter in the wrong place, "Control-click a message, choose Categorize Sender, then select a category." Mail also has rules, which "help you manage incoming email messages and automate tasks," if you'd rather file newsletters into a mailbox of your own.

Dropping one. Mail shows a banner under the header of mailing-list mail, and you can "unsubscribe from the list directly in Mail" (Apple).

AI. With Apple Intelligence on, "A short summary automatically appears under each unread email in your inbox," and you can turn summaries off (Apple).

What it can't do. Categories are "not available in all countries or regions." Apple names four categories, and none is for newsletters alone, so a newsletter shares its list with deals or account updates. There's no list of every newsletter you get.

Pick it if you want free, built-in sorting and don't mind newsletters sharing a category with other updates.

Spark: best for a Newsletters group on Mac and phone

Spark's Smart Inbox groups mail by kind. Its help page defines the Newsletters group as one that "displays regular emails from the websites you've subscribed to" (Spark). On a Mac, you turn it on in Settings, Inbox, by choosing the Unread Cards inbox view.

Price. The Free plan includes the Smart Inbox and unlimited accounts. Plus is $10 a month or $99 a year, and Pro is $20 a month or $199 a year, for Spark's AI features (pricing).

Accounts and platforms. Spark works with Google, iCloud, Outlook, Yahoo, Exchange and IMAP (Spark). The Mac App Store listing says it "Requires macOS 12.0.0 or later." It also runs on iPhone, Windows and Android, so your Newsletters group follows you.

Where your mail goes. Spark says some features "require our server-side email processing to work," including push notifications (privacy).

What it can't do. The help page describes Spark's own groups, such as Newsletters, not groups you make. Its servers process mail for some features, and its AI is on paid plans only, with a limited preview on Free.

Pick it if you want a ready-made Newsletters group on your Mac and your phone, for free.

Gmail: best if you read in a browser and all your mail is Gmail

Gmail sorts your inbox into tabs. Promotions holds "Deals, offers, and other promotional emails," and Updates holds "Automated confirmations, notifications, statements, and reminders that may not need immediate attention" (Google). Newsletters often land in one of the two.

Setting it up. On a computer, set the inbox type to Default in Quick settings, click Customize, pick the tabs you want, and click Save. Google says you can only choose from its categories, not create your own.

Dropping one. Gmail's Manage subscriptions page lists the senders that mail you, with Unsubscribe next to each (Google). Our unsubscribe guide covers it in full.

What it can't do. Tabs cover Gmail accounts only. Google makes no Gmail app for the Mac, so you read in a browser; our page on the Gmail app for Mac covers the choices. Newsletters share their tab with receipts or deals.

Pick it if all your mail is Gmail and you're happy reading it in a browser.

HEY: best if you'll move to a new address

HEY gives newsletters a place of their own. The Feed shows your newsletters already open, "with the newest at the top," and you "Just scroll to read" (HEY). Receipts go to a separate Paper Trail, and the Screener asks you about each new sender: "The first time someone emails you, you get to decide if you want to hear from them again."

Price. HEY for You is $99 a year, with a 30-day trial and no card (pricing). There's no free plan.

Accounts. HEY is its own email service with a @hey.com address. It "does not import your existing email from Gmail, Outlook, iCloud," and "HEY doesn't support IMAP or POP" (FAQ). You can forward new mail into HEY from another service, but you can't check those accounts in HEY's apps. So to read newsletters in The Feed, you move each subscription to your HEY address, or forward them.

Platforms. HEY has a Mac app for Apple silicon and one for Intel Macs (apps), plus apps for Windows, Linux, iPhone and Android.

AI. 37signals says its "products don't include built-in AI features that process your content" (privacy).

What it can't do. It can't read your Gmail, iCloud or Outlook inbox. HEY says it is "not end-to-end encrypted (we still hold the keys)."

Pick it if you're ready to move your mail to a new address and want newsletters in a scrolling feed by default.

Readwise Reader: best for heavy readers who also save articles

Readwise Reader is a reading app, not a mail app. It asks you to "Subscribe to your newsletters in Reader to spare your email inbox" (Readwise). Newsletters sit next to the web articles, PDFs and feeds you save.

How newsletters get in. Reader's help lists two ways: "subscribing directly to newsletters with the custom address," or "subscribing to newsletters using your personal address and auto-forwarding" (Readwise docs). It gives you a Feed address for newsletters and forwarding rules. When you forward from Gmail, Reader clicks Gmail's confirmation link for you.

Platforms. Reader runs "For web, desktop, iOS, and Android," and its FAQ names "desktop apps for Mac & Windows" (Readwise).

Price. A free 30-day trial, "no credit card required," then "$9.99/month billed annually, or $12.99/month billed monthly."

What it can't do. It's not where you reply to mail. You set up an address or a forwarding rule for each source, and newsletters leave your mail app.

Pick it if you read long newsletters, highlight them, and want them in the same place as everything else you save to read.

Feedbin: best if you already read RSS

Feedbin is a feed reader that also takes newsletters. "Every pro account gets a unique email address to subscribe to and follow newsletters" (Feedbin). They show up next to your RSS feeds.

Price. A free 30-day trial, then $7 a month or $70 a year.

Platforms. Feedbin runs in a browser. It "syncs with your favorite iOS, Mac, & Android Apps," and its site names Mac readers such as NetNewsWire and ReadKit. So on a Mac you read it in a browser or in one of those apps.

What it can't do. It's a reader, not a mail app. Each newsletter needs a new subscription at your Feedbin address.

Pick it if you already follow sites by RSS and want newsletters in the same list.

What about Matter, Meco and other reading apps?

Many newsletter readers that rank for this search are built for phones. Matter calls itself "the modern read-later app for iPhone, iPad, and web" (Matter), and its page names no Mac app, so it isn't listed here. Before you pick a reading app, check its own page for a Mac app, and check whether it reads your inbox or needs a new address.

How to choose

• Keep your address, sort newsletters your own way, and drop the unread ones, on a Mac with iCloud, Gmail or Outlook: Alrighty.
• Free and built in, with Apple's categories: Apple Mail.
• A ready-made Newsletters group on Mac and phone: Spark.
• All Gmail, read in a browser: Gmail's tabs.
• A new address with a scrolling feed for newsletters: HEY.
• Newsletters next to saved articles and highlights: Readwise Reader.
• Newsletters next to your RSS feeds: Feedbin.
• Too many newsletters to read at all: unsubscribe first. See the best unsubscribe apps and the best email cleaner apps.
• Store and app mail you never signed up to read: see how to stop marketing emails.

Questions

How do I separate newsletters from my regular email?

Most mail apps can do it without a new address. Apple Mail and Gmail sort newsletters into categories such as Promotions and Updates. Spark puts them in a Newsletters group. In Alrighty Pro, you make a group and it takes newsletters out of the Inbox list. A reading app like Readwise Reader or Feedbin takes them out of your mail entirely, through a new address.

Should I use a separate email address for newsletters?

It helps if you want newsletters in a reading app, because those apps receive them at their own address. The cost is moving every subscription, or setting up a forwarding rule. If you'd rather keep one address, a mail app that sorts newsletters into their own list does the same job with no changes at the sender's end.

Can I read newsletters in Apple Mail on a Mac?

Yes. Mail sorts newsletters into the Updates or Promotions category where categories are available, and you can move a sender with Categorize Sender. You can also make a rule that files newsletters into a mailbox. Mail has no separate reading view for them.

Is there a free newsletter reader for Mac?

Apple Mail is free with every Mac, and Spark's Free plan includes its Newsletters group. Gmail's tabs are free in a browser. Alrighty has a Free plan after its 14-day trial, but groups need Pro. HEY, Readwise Reader and Feedbin are paid after a trial.

How do I stop newsletters I never read?

Unsubscribe from them, then block any sender that keeps sending. Alrighty's Clean up lists the newsletters you never open so you can stop them at once. Gmail's Manage subscriptions and Apple Mail's banner unsubscribe one sender at a time. The steps for blocking are in how to block a sender in Gmail, Outlook and Apple Mail. If hundreds of lists you never joined start at once, see how to stop subscription bombing.