Email cleaner apps guide + privacy chart

An email cleaner finds the senders filling your inbox and clears them out in bulk: it unsubscribes, deletes or archives old mail, and blocks what keeps coming. Every cleaner needs access to your mailbox, so the real difference between them is where your mail goes next. Most are web services that read your mail on their own servers, one sells data about your commercial email, and a few work on your own device. The chart below tags each one by where your mail goes.

Quick picks: what do you want?

• Clean up inside the mail app you read in: Alrighty
• Clean up from your iPhone or Android: Clean Email
• One big cleanup of years of backlog: Mailstrom
• Free, with nothing to install: Gmail or Apple Mail
• Yahoo, Fastmail or many providers at once: Leave Me Alone
• Keep your mail app and have low-priority mail filed as it comes: SaneBox

Email cleaners at a glance

The tag is where your mail goes: Local stays on your device, Provider stays with Google, Headers means only header data leaves, Hybrid keeps mail local but sends some to a server, Server reads it on the vendor's servers, and Data-sold means the vendor sells data derived from it.

App	Tag	Price	Accounts	Runs on	AI on by default
Alrighty	Hybrid	14-day trial with no card, then Free or Pro	iCloud, Gmail, Outlook	Mac (Apple silicon), Windows, Linux	Your own AI off until you connect it; Clean up on when signed in
Apple Mail	Local	Comes with macOS	Any account in Mail	Mac	No
Gmail	Provider	Free	Gmail only	Web, Android, iPhone	No
SaneBox	Headers	From $7 a month	Gmail, Microsoft 365, iCloud, Yahoo, IMAP	Any mail app	Opt-in
Clean Email	Server	$9.99 to $29.99 a month	Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, work mail	iPhone, iPad, Android, Mac, web	No
Mailstrom	Server	$9 to $29.95 a month	Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, others	Not stated	None seen
Leave Me Alone	Server	10 free unsubscribes; from $48/yr	Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, AOL, Fastmail, iCloud	Web	Opt-in features
Inbox Zero	Server	$20 a month for AI features	Gmail, Outlook	Web, desktop, iPhone	Paid plans only
Unroll.me	Data-sold	Free sign-up	Gmail named; others not listed in text	Web sign-up	None seen

We read each tool's own pricing, help and privacy pages on November 3 and 4, 2026. Every fact about another product links to its source, and where a vendor's page didn't state something, we leave it out. Alrighty is our app, and it is listed first.

Which email cleaners read your mail on their servers?

A web cleaner signs in to your account, copies what it needs to its own servers, and works on it there. That is how it can sort thousands of messages from your phone. It also means a company holds data about your mail. Here is what each one says, in its own words.

• Unroll.me says it will "collect copies of and information from the commercial email messages you receive" (privacy notice). It says "we provide data about and derived from the Commercial Emails that you receive to some of our customers," and names them: "e-commerce businesses, investment companies, consumer brands, media companies, and data brokers." It calls this its "consumer panel." Unrollme LLC is "a NielsenIQ company."
• Clean Email "accesses email metadata, including sender and recipient details, subjects, dates, folders, labels." When you open a full preview, "we also retrieve and process the selected message body," and preview content "may be temporarily cached" (privacy policy). It says it does not sell, rent or share personal data for third-party advertising. Indexed data is deleted from its servers 45 days after your last login, once no subscription is active.
• Leave Me Alone stores the metadata of your subscription emails in its database. Rollups fetch, encrypt and store email content, and the Spam Blocker reads incoming mail and keeps some of it to train its classifiers (security). Its privacy page says "We don't sell user data."
• SaneBox says "We only access the envelope and header data associated with your emails," and "All email resides on the customer's email server and is never held on SaneBox servers" (privacy). Its optional AI summaries do process the body.
• Mailstrom connects to Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo "via OAuth2," so it never has your password (Mailstrom). Its privacy policy says it doesn't share data with third parties for their direct marketing and keeps data "up to three months" after you delete your account.
• Inbox Zero reads "Email content, metadata (sender, recipient, subject lines, timestamps, folders/labels), and email account settings," and says it does not permanently store full email bodies (privacy).

Apple Mail runs on your Mac, and Gmail's tools run inside Google, so neither adds a new company. Alrighty keeps your mail and its search index on your computer, with the exceptions listed in its section below.

The point is not that web cleaners are unsafe. Clean Email, SaneBox and Mailstrom each state limits on what they keep and who sees it. The point is to read the policy before you connect, because the difference between "we don't sell your data" and "we sell data about your commercial email" is the whole difference.

Alrighty: best email cleaner for Mac

Tag: Hybrid. Best for: people who want the cleanup to live in the mail app they read in, instead of in a separate web service.

Alrighty is a full desktop mail app for Mac, Windows and Linux, not a separate cleaning service. It puts iCloud, Gmail and Outlook accounts in one inbox, and it cleans up as part of reading your mail.

• Clean up. It lists the senders you probably don't want: scams, cold outreach, and newsletters you never open. You stop them all at once.
• Stop mail. One click on a sender unsubscribes you in every way the message offers (one-click, email, or the list's page), archives their mail, and moves new mail from them out as it arrives.
• Phishing checks. A message that is sure to be phishing goes to Junk. A likely one stays, with a warning.
• Search. It runs on your computer and matches what you mean as well as the words, across every account.

Price. A 14-day trial with no card, then a Free plan or Pro.

Where your mail goes. Your mail stays with iCloud, Google or Microsoft. Alrighty keeps its copy and its search index on your computer. Your passwords and tokens stay on your computer, encrypted with a key from your system's keychain, and no Alrighty server holds them. To sort senders for Clean up, Alrighty sends each sender's address and the start of their newest few emails to its server, which asks an AI model. While you're signed in, Clean up sorts senders in the background, and opening a reply starts a suggested draft.

What it can't do. There is no iPhone or web app, so you can't clean up from your phone. It takes iCloud, Gmail and Outlook accounts only, not Yahoo, AOL, Fastmail or other IMAP. It is a new app with no long track record.

Clean Email: best email cleaner for iPhone and the web

Tag: Server. Best for: cleaning up from your phone, or across several kinds of accounts, if you're fine with a service that indexes your mailbox.

Clean Email "works across iPhone and iPad, Android, Mac, and the web" and supports "Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, AOL, and your company email account" (Clean Email). It works alongside the mail app you already use.

What it does. It lets you act on many messages at once. It will "send unsubscribe requests on your behalf," and it can block lists and senders that ignore those requests. Auto Clean applies rules to new mail, such as archiving social notifications or mail past a certain age.

Price. Its plans page lists plans for 1, 5 and 10 accounts at $9.99, $19.99 or $29.99 a month, or $29.99, $49.99 or $99.99 a year.

Where your mail goes. Your mailbox is indexed on Clean Email's servers. It reads metadata, and it fetches a message body when you open a full preview (privacy). If you connect an AI assistant to it, it shares data with that app's provider, "such as OpenAI," within the permissions you grant.

What it can't do. It does not replace your mail app, so you clean in one place and read in another. iCloud support beyond app-specific passwords isn't spelled out on its home page.

Mailstrom: best for one big cleanup

Tag: Server. Best for: years of backlog cleared in one focused session.

Mailstrom promises to "Unsubscribe and delete thousands of messages in just a few clicks" (Mailstrom). It groups your mail so you can keep, delete, archive or move many messages at once. It also offers one-click unsubscribe and one-click block of senders or subjects.

Price. Basic is $9 a month or $59.95 a year for 1 account and up to 10,000 emails. Plus is $14 a month or $99.95 a year for 3 accounts and up to 250,000 emails. Pro is $29.95 a month or $199.95 a year for 20 accounts and no size limit (pricing). There is a free trial; its length isn't stated. No free plan is listed.

Accounts. Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL, plus an option for other providers.

What it can't do. It's paid only, and Basic stops at 10,000 emails, which a busy Gmail account can pass. It's a cleanup service, not a mail app. Our Mailstrom alternatives compare it further, and the best apps to bulk delete emails cover deleting by sender, date or size.

Leave Me Alone: best for many kinds of accounts

Tag: Server. Best for: Yahoo, Fastmail or other accounts that Alrighty can't add.

Leave Me Alone "works with Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, AOL, Fastmail, iCloud, and many more!" (Leave Me Alone). It lists your subscriptions so you can opt out of them, rolls newsletters into a digest, and has a Screener for cold mail. Its site says it's made by Squarecat.

Price. "Unsubscribe from 10 emails for free - no credit card required." Paid yearly, it's $48 a year for 1 inbox, $72 for 3 and $99 for unlimited inboxes (pricing). It offers a "14 day money back guarantee."

Where your mail goes. It asks Gmail for permission to "View and modify but not delete your email," and Microsoft for Mail.ReadWrite (security). Spam Blocker samples kept for training can outlive account deletion (privacy).

SaneBox: best for keeping your mail app and filing low-priority mail

Tag: Headers. Best for: ongoing sorting on any provider without changing apps.

SaneBox doesn't clean in one pass. It connects to your mailbox and sorts mail into folders as it arrives, so you can keep using any mail app. It "works with every major email service such as Gmail, Microsoft 365, Apple iCloud, Yahoo! Mail and Fastmail," and "any IMAP, Microsoft Exchange or ActiveSync server" (SaneBox). Its BlackHole removes a sender "from your inbox for good," and it can "Unsubscribe you from unwanted senders in one click."

Price. "Our plans start at just $7 per month" (SaneBox). There's a free trial, but its pages give two different lengths. No free plan.

What it can't do. It sorts and files mail; the mail still arrives. It's a subscription, with no free tier.

Inbox Zero: best open-source cleaner for Gmail and Outlook

Tag: Server. Best for: an AI assistant on Gmail or Outlook, for people who value open source code.

Inbox Zero is an open-source AI email assistant "built for Gmail and Outlook" (Inbox Zero). Its paid plans include bulk unsubscribe, bulk archive and cold-email blocking.

Price. Starter is $20 a month, or $18 a month billed yearly ($216). Plus is $35 a month for 2 accounts. Its email app is free "on web, desktop, and iPhone," and AI features have a 7-day free trial (pricing).

What it can't do. It's built for Gmail and Outlook, and iCloud isn't listed. The cleanup tools sit in paid plans, and they read email content for AI processing.

Unroll.me: free, if you accept its data model

Tag: Data-sold. Best for: a free daily digest of newsletters, if you're comfortable with your commercial email feeding a data business. If not, any other tool on this page is a better fit.

Unroll.me lets you "block unwanted emails, keep the ones you want, and rollup the rest into a single daily digest" (Unroll.me). Signing up is free, and the home page shows no paid plan.

Where your mail goes. This is the catch, and Unroll.me states it plainly in its privacy notice. It collects copies of your commercial emails and provides data about and derived from them to customers, including investment companies and data brokers. It says directly identifiable information is not sold or shared to target you, and that it "will not use this Gmail data for serving advertisements." It keeps data "for as long as reasonably necessary," with no fixed period.

What it can't do. Its home page describes blocking and a digest, not unsubscribing. It doesn't list supported providers in its text.

Gmail and Apple Mail: the free cleaners you already have

Tags: Provider (Gmail) and Local (Apple Mail). Best for: a free cleanup with nothing to install.

You may not need an app. Both big mail apps now have a free cleanup tool built in.

Gmail. On a computer, click More in the left column, then Manage subscriptions. Gmail lists the senders mailing you, and Unsubscribe removes you "from all active mailing lists related to the sender" (Google). Google says it can take a few days, and new mail from that sender goes to Spam in the meantime. The page is still rolling out, so it may not appear for you yet.

Apple Mail. Mail shows a banner under the header of mailing-list mail. "In the banner, click Unsubscribe, then click OK in the alert that appears" (Apple). You can also block up to 3,000 senders. It works one message at a time, with no list of all your subscriptions.

What they can't do. Gmail's page covers Gmail only. Apple Mail has no bulk view. Neither lists cold outreach or scams for you. Our guide to unsubscribe apps compares these built-in tools with the paid ones in more detail. If you're weighing Cleanfox or Trimbox, see our Cleanfox alternatives and Trimbox alternatives.

How to choose

• On a computer, with iCloud, Gmail or Outlook, cleaning inside the app you read in: Alrighty.
• Cleaning from an iPhone or Android: Clean Email.
• One big cleanup of years of backlog: Mailstrom.
• Yahoo, Fastmail or many providers at once: Leave Me Alone.
• Keep your mail app and file low-priority mail as it comes: SaneBox.
• Gmail or Outlook with an AI assistant, open source: Inbox Zero.
• Free and nothing to install: Gmail's Manage subscriptions or Apple Mail's banner.
• You don't want your email data sold: read the privacy notice first, and skip Unroll.me.

What to do after the cleanup

Cleaning removes what's already there. New mail keeps arriving unless the sender stops. For a newsletter, unsubscribe. For a sender that ignores it, block them in your mail app: the steps for each app are in how to block a sender in Gmail, Outlook and Apple Mail. For the big senders, such as LinkedIn or Facebook, turn the email off in their own settings: see stop emails for the steps per brand.

If you're choosing a whole new mail app, not just a cleaner, see the best email app for Mac.

Questions

How do I clean up thousands of emails?

Stop the senders first, then clear the backlog in bulk. A cleaner groups your mail by sender so you can unsubscribe and delete thousands of messages at once: Mailstrom says it does this "in just a few clicks." Gmail's Manage subscriptions lists the senders mailing you for free. Our bulk delete guide covers deleting by sender, date or size.

What is the best app for clearing emails?

It depends on where you clean. On a computer with iCloud, Gmail or Outlook, Alrighty cleans inside your mail app. From a phone, Clean Email works on iPhone, iPad and Android. For one big cleanup of years of mail, Mailstrom groups messages so you can act on many at once.

Is there a tool that can clean up my Gmail mailbox?

Yes. Gmail's own Manage subscriptions page is free and lists the senders mailing you. Clean Email, Mailstrom, Leave Me Alone and Inbox Zero all connect to Gmail. Alrighty cleans up Gmail on your computer, next to iCloud and Outlook accounts.

Do email cleaner apps read my emails?

Most do, at least the headers. Clean Email reads metadata and fetches a body when you open a full preview. SaneBox says it reads only envelope and header data unless you turn on its AI. Inbox Zero reads email content for its AI features. A cleaner that runs on your Mac, like Apple Mail's tools, doesn't send your mail to a new company.