Free email apps for Mac, and what free includes

The best free email app for Mac is Apple Mail if you want nothing to install, and Thunderbird if you want a free email client with no paid tier at all. Alrighty has a Free plan after a 14-day trial, for iCloud, Gmail and Outlook with one-click tools for junk. Mailspring, Spark and Canary are free with paid upgrades. Outlook is free with ads, and eM Client's free plan stops at two accounts.

Most lists of free Mac email clients write "Free" next to each app and move on. But "free" means a different deal in each app. One shows ads. One limits you to two accounts. One puts its name in the mail you send. One keeps your logins on its servers. This page says what each free plan includes, what it holds back, and how the app pays for itself.

How we checked

We read each app's own pricing, help and privacy pages on November 2 and 3, 2026, and every fact links to its source. For each free plan we noted the account and use limits, the features held back for paid plans, the AI on the free plan, and how the vendor makes money. We did not test or score the apps. Alrighty is our app, and it's listed first.

Free Mac email apps at a glance

App	What's free	The limit on free	What you pay for	How it makes money
Alrighty	Free plan after a 14-day trial	Small monthly AI allowance; no sorting	Pro (price not set)	Pro plan
Apple Mail	The whole app	Comes only with macOS	Hide My Email needs iCloud+	Part of macOS
Thunderbird	The whole app	None stated	No paid plan listed	Donations
Mailspring	The whole app	Pro features "a few times a week"	Pro: $8/mo or $85/yr	Pro plan
Outlook for Mac	Personal accounts	Ads; work accounts need a licence	Microsoft 365 removes ads	Ads and Microsoft 365
Spark	Unlimited accounts	"A limited free preview" of AI	Plus $99/yr, Pro $199/yr	Paid plans
Canary Mail	Unlimited accounts, unified inbox	No AI Copilot	Growth $36/yr, Pro+ $100/yr	Yearly or lifetime plans
eM Client	2 accounts	"Home use on 1 device"; no commercial use	$49.95/yr or $74.95 once	Licences
MailMate	Every feature in Free Mode	Outgoing mail names "MailMate Free Mode"	$10 every 3 months	Paid Mode
Airmail	The download	Not stated	Pro $49.99/yr; Ai Composer extra	Pro and add-ons

The four kinds of free

Every app on this list fits one of four deals. Knowing which one you're getting tells you what changes later.

1. Free with something you already bought. Apple Mail comes with macOS. Outlook is free for personal accounts, and Microsoft sells Microsoft 365 to take the ads away.
2. Free with no paid tier. Thunderbird is "funded by user donations," and its home page lists no paid plan.
3. Free with a paid tier on top. Mailspring, Spark, Canary, eM Client, MailMate and Airmail give you the core app and charge for more accounts, AI, or features such as send later.
4. A trial, then a free plan. Alrighty gives you every feature for 14 days with no card, then you keep the Free plan or move to Pro.

Alrighty: free plan for iCloud, Gmail and Outlook

Alrighty is a desktop mail app for Mac, Windows and Linux that puts iCloud, Gmail and Outlook accounts in one inbox. It starts with a 14-day trial with no card. After that, you keep using it on the Free plan, or you move to Pro. Pro's price is not set yet.

What the Free plan includes. Your iCloud, Gmail and Outlook accounts in one inbox, one search across all of them, and the tools for unwanted mail:

• Stop mail. One click unsubscribes in every way a message offers, archives that sender's mail, and moves their new mail out as it arrives.
• Clean up. A list of the senders you probably don't want, such as scams, cold outreach and newsletters you never open, so you can stop them all at once.
• Search on your Mac that matches what you mean as well as the words you type.

What Free holds back. Free has a small monthly AI allowance and no sorting into groups. Pro has both. AI features send only the emails they need to Alrighty's server, which passes them to an AI model (OpenAI's for answers and replies). When you're signed in, opening a reply starts a suggested draft. You can also connect your own AI, such as Claude or ChatGPT's desktop app, over a local MCP server, and nothing sends until you click Send.

How it pays for itself. Pro. Your mail stays with Apple, Google and Microsoft, and Alrighty keeps its copy and search index on your Mac. Your passwords and sign-ins stay on your Mac, encrypted with a key from your system's keychain.

What it can't do. On a Mac, it needs Apple silicon. It takes iCloud, Gmail and Outlook accounts only, so no Yahoo, AOL, Fastmail or other IMAP. There's no iPhone or web app, and it's a new app with no long track record.

Pick it if you want a free plan that removes junk and searches every iCloud, Gmail and Outlook account at once.

Apple Mail: free with every Mac

Apple Mail is part of macOS, so it costs nothing more and there is no plan to pick. It adds "iCloud, Gmail (Google), Exchange, school, work, or other" accounts (Apple). Its free tools for unwanted mail are real: unsubscribe "directly in Mail," block up to 3,000 senders, and a junk filter that learns (Apple).

What costs extra. Hide My Email, which gives each sign-up a random address, needs an iCloud+ subscription (Apple). Apple Intelligence summaries and Smart Reply are free where Apple Intelligence is available, but Apple says it "is not available in all languages or regions" (Apple).

The catch. It runs only on Apple devices, and search depends on your Mac's Spotlight index. If search misses mail you can see, our Apple Mail search guide has the fixes. If you want to block a sender, our blocking guide shows where the setting is.

Pick it if you want free with nothing to install.

Thunderbird: free with nothing held back

Thunderbird is "Free forever," "funded by user donations," and its makers say they don't "sell ads in your inbox" (Thunderbird). Its home page lists no paid plan. It runs on Mac, Windows and Linux, with "all accounts separately or in a unified inbox."

What you give. Its privacy notice says your messages "are stored and processed locally on your device." It also says "Thunderbird sends telemetry about your interactions with Thunderbird to us," and when you add an account, "your email domain may be sent to Mozilla's configuration database."

The catch. Its pages list no AI features, and its home page names no providers. You may need to add iCloud by hand with its manual setup guide.

Pick it if you want a free, open-source app with no upsell. See our Thunderbird alternatives for others like it.

Mailspring: free, with Pro a few times a week

Mailspring is "free forever for Mac, Windows, and Linux" (Mailspring). With a free Mailspring ID you can use Pro features, such as send later and read receipts, "a few times a week at no charge." Unlimited use is Pro, at $8 a month or $85 a year.

What free includes. Gmail, iCloud, Office 365, FastMail, Outlook.com, Yahoo and IMAP accounts, and "Lightning-fast search across all accounts" (Mailspring). Your mail goes "straight from your mail provider to your machine, not through our servers."

The catch. Pro features send message metadata to Mailspring (data collection). Its FAQ says "POP3 support is not planned," Exchange Web Services and ActiveSync aren't supported, and Google's Advanced Protection blocks it. Its pages list no AI features.

Pick it if you want free, direct, and Yahoo or Fastmail accounts too. Compare more in our Mailspring alternatives.

Outlook for Mac: free, with ads

Outlook "is free to use with your personal Outlook.com, Gmail, iCloud, Yahoo, and IMAP accounts" (Microsoft). Its Mac App Store listing also names POP accounts, and says "Add a premium subscription to go ad-free" (Mac App Store).

What free costs you.

• Ads. The free app shows ads. Its App Store listing says to "Add a premium subscription to go ad-free."
• Your mail and advertising. The App Store privacy label lists "emails or text messages" under "Developer's Advertising or Marketing," as data not linked to you.
• Work accounts. A work or school account needs "a license assigned by your IT administrator that includes the desktop versions of the Microsoft 365 apps."
• AI. Copilot is for "Microsoft 365 Copilot–licensed users" (Microsoft).

Pick it if you already pay for Microsoft 365, so the ads are gone. Otherwise see our Outlook alternatives for Mac.

Spark: free with unlimited accounts, AI as a preview

Spark's free plan lists Smart Inbox, "Unlimited Email Accounts," Smart Notifications and a calendar (pricing). Free users "can try a limited free preview of Spark +AI." Plus is $99 a year and Pro is $199 a year.

What free costs you. Spark's privacy page says some features "require our server-side email processing to work," and push notifications need it too. For AOL, Exchange and custom IMAP accounts, Spark stores your login and encrypts the password in its database. That holds on the free plan as on the paid ones.

Pick it if you want unlimited free accounts on a Mac, Windows PC and Android phone. Our Spark alternatives list apps that keep logins on your Mac.

Canary Mail: free forever, AI on paid plans

Canary's Free plan is "Free forever," for "students & personal use," with "Unlimited Mail Accounts," a unified inbox, snooze, templates and "Read Receipts (Lite)" (pricing). Growth, $36 a year, adds AI Copilot for writing and summaries. Pro+, $100 a year, adds encryption and phishing protection.

What to know. There's no monthly billing: its monthly prices are "a monthly equivalent of the yearly plan." The paid trial is seven days with "No credit card. No auto-billing," and then you keep the Free plan. Its privacy policy says your mail is "stored on your device and is never transferred to our servers," except for push on phones.

Pick it if you want a free unified inbox on Mac, iPhone, Windows and Android.

eM Client: free for two accounts at home

eM Client's free plan is "Home use on 1 device" with "2 email accounts," and commercial use is "None" (pricing). Personal is $49.95 a year with the AI Add-on, or $74.95 once, which doesn't list the add-on, for unlimited accounts on up to 3 devices. Its iOS and Android apps are free.

What to know. A third account, or using it for work, means paying. On the plus side, its privacy policy says eM Client "never retrieves and has no access to the content of your emails."

Pick it if you have two personal accounts, or you want to pay once later.

MailMate: free, but it signs your mail

MailMate is a Mac-only IMAP client. Its Free Mode keeps "access to all features of MailMate," but it is "not intended to be used by all users." Businesses must use Paid Mode at "$10 every 3 months," while "non-profit use does not require the use of Paid Mode" (pricing).

What free costs you. "Outgoing emails show 'MailMate Free Mode' as the email client name," so a reader who checks the headers sees it. The stable release is "more than 4 year old," and new versions ship as betas (download).

Pick it if you want a keyboard-driven IMAP app for personal or non-profit mail.

Airmail: free to download, Pro to unlock

Airmail is free in the Mac App Store, with Airmail Pro at $7.99 a month or $49.99 a year, and Ai Composer as a separate purchase (Mac App Store). The listing names Exchange, iCloud, Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Outlook.com, IMAP and POP3 accounts. It needs macOS 14.6 or later.

The catch. Neither the App Store listing nor Airmail's site says what the free version leaves out, so you find the limits after you install.

Pick it if you're all Apple and you expect to pay for Pro.

Mac email apps that aren't free

These show up on "best email app" lists, but none of them has a free plan for the inbox you have now:

• Mimestream is $49.99 a year or $4.99 a month after a 14-day trial with "no credit card required," and "a subscription license is the only purchase option" (pricing). It takes Google accounts only.
• Superhuman starts at $25 per member per month, billed annually, and its plans page shows no free plan (plans). It takes Gmail and Outlook only. See our Superhuman alternatives.
• HEY is $99 a year after a 30-day trial, and it needs a new @hey.com address (pricing).
• Proton Mail's desktop app needs "a paid or trial Proton Mail plan," with a 14-day trial for free users (Proton).

For the paid picks and how they compare, see our best email app for Mac list. BlueMail and Spike also show up on free lists, and our BlueMail alternatives and Spike alternatives cover them.

Which free email apps have no ads?

Outlook is the only app here whose own listing says the free app shows ads: it says to "Add a premium subscription to go ad-free." Thunderbird says it doesn't "sell ads in your inbox." Ads aren't the only price of free, though. MailMate's Free Mode adds its name to the mail you send, and Spark's free plan uses its servers for some features, the same as its paid plans.

How to choose

• A free plan for iCloud, Gmail and Outlook, with junk gone and one search: Alrighty.
• Nothing to install: Apple Mail.
• Free with no paid tier, open source: Thunderbird.
• Free, direct, and Yahoo or Fastmail too: Mailspring.
• Unlimited free accounts on Windows or Android: Spark or Canary.
• You already pay for Microsoft 365: Outlook.
• Two personal accounts and a later one-time purchase: eM Client.

If you want to clean out the mail you already have, our guide to stopping emails covers one sender at a time, and our best email cleaner apps list compares tools for many. More guides are on the blog.

Questions

Is there a completely free email app for Mac?

Yes. Apple Mail comes with macOS, and Thunderbird is free and funded by donations, with no paid plan on its home page. Mailspring, Spark, Canary and Alrighty have free plans with paid upgrades on top.

Which free Mac email app allows the most accounts?

Spark's free plan lists "Unlimited Email Accounts," and Canary's lists "Unlimited Mail Accounts." Apple Mail, Thunderbird and Mailspring are free apps with no account limit stated. eM Client's free plan allows two accounts. Our multiple accounts list compares them in more detail.

Is Outlook for Mac really free?

Yes, for personal Outlook.com, Gmail, iCloud, Yahoo and IMAP accounts, with ads. A Microsoft 365 subscription removes the ads. Work and school accounts need a licence from your IT administrator.

Do free email apps include AI?

Mostly not, or only a little. Spark gives a limited preview, Canary keeps AI Copilot for paid plans, and Alrighty's Free plan has a small monthly AI allowance. Apple Mail's Apple Intelligence features are free where Apple Intelligence is available. Our AI email assistants list covers the AI side.