The best Canary Mail alternatives

The best Canary Mail alternative on a Mac is Alrighty if your accounts are iCloud, Gmail and Outlook and you want one inbox, search that finds things, and junk gone with one click. Apple Mail is free on every Apple device you own. Spark is the closest match across Windows and Android, and it bills by the month. Mailspring and Thunderbird are free, and Thunderbird has OpenPGP built in. eM Client sells a one-time license and does PGP too.

Lists of Canary Mail alternatives on G2, Capterra and AlternativeTo rank apps by user reviews and votes. None of them start from Canary's own plan limits, which are usually why people look elsewhere: 2 devices on the free plan, no monthly billing, AI and PGP only on paid plans, and a server that holds your login for push. This page starts there, then checks each alternative against those same limits.

How we checked

We read each app's own pricing, help, privacy and security pages and its Mac App Store listing on November 3, 2026, and every fact links to its source. For each app we noted the price, the devices it runs on and how many a plan covers, where it keeps your mail and logins, which plan its AI needs, and whether it does PGP. We did not test the apps or score them. Alrighty is our app, and it's listed first.

What Canary's own pages say

Canary is a well-made app, and its free plan is generous on accounts. These are the limits that send people looking, in Canary's words.

Free covers 2 devices. The free plan is "Free forever" with "Unlimited Mail Accounts" and a unified inbox. Its FAQ says "Free - up to 2 devices." Growth and Pro+ cover up to 5 (pricing).

No monthly billing. "Canary Mail does not offer monthly subscriptions." Growth is "Billed yearly at $36/year" and Pro+ "Billed yearly at $100/year." The monthly prices on the page are "a monthly equivalent of the yearly plan, not a monthly billing option." The other way to pay is a lifetime license. The Mac App Store lists "Canary Growth Lifetime Bundle" and "Canary Pro Lifetime Bundle" at $99.99 each (Mac App Store).

AI and Inbox Cleaner start on Growth. The free plan says "Upgrade for AI & security." AI Copilot, Inbox Cleaner, Send Later and Calendar & Scheduling are Growth features. Canary's privacy policy says Copilot uses "models offered by top-tier providers such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Cohere, Google and others," and that "we have opted out of data sharing." If Copilot's writing is what you'd miss, see the best AI email writers.

PGP needs Pro+. Canary's security page says "Encrypt end to end with PGP, or use SecureSend when your recipient doesn't have PGP," and both are "Available on Pro+." That's the $100 a year plan. Pro+ also adds phishing protection; for other ways to check a suspicious email, see the best phishing email checkers.

Push stores your login for a time. The privacy policy says your data is "stored on your device and is never transferred to our servers." For push, though, "Canary will temporarily store your email address, credentials, sender, subject line" on its server, and deletes that data once the notification reaches your device. Its servers are in Germany. The policy shows no effective date.

Canary does a lot well. It runs on Mac, iPhone, iPad, Windows and Android (Canary), it blocks trackers by default, and every download gets "access to all paid features for 7 days," with "No credit card" (pricing).

The alternatives at a glance

App	Price	Devices	Where your mail and logins are kept	AI	PGP
Alrighty	14-day trial, then Free or Pro	Mac (Apple silicon), Windows, Linux	Your computer; AI sends the emails it needs	Reply drafts when signed in; your own AI off until connected	No
Apple Mail	Comes with macOS	Mac, iPhone, iPad	Not stated in Apple's Mail guide	Summaries on with Apple Intelligence	S/MIME only
Spark	Free; Plus $10/mo or $99/yr	Mac, iPhone, Windows, Android	Spark's servers hold tokens or passwords	Paid plans; free preview	Not mentioned
Mailspring	Free; Pro $8/mo or $85/yr	Mac, Windows, Linux	Your Mac, except Pro metadata	None listed	Not mentioned
Thunderbird	Free	Mac, Windows, Linux, Android	Your Mac; sends usage telemetry	None listed	OpenPGP and S/MIME
eM Client	Free for 2 accounts; $49.95/yr	1 free, 3 paid	Your Mac; push uses your login	In the yearly plans	PGP
Canary Mail	Free; $36/yr or $100/yr	2 free, 5 paid	Your device; push stores credentials	Growth plan and up	Pro+ only

Alrighty: best Canary alternative for iCloud, Gmail and Outlook on a Mac

Alrighty is a desktop mail app for Mac, Windows and Linux, for people whose mail is split across iCloud, Gmail and Outlook. Gmail connects with Sign in with Google or an app password, Outlook and Microsoft 365 with Sign in with Microsoft, and iCloud with an app-specific password. All of them land in one inbox, with one search across every account.

• Stop mail. Canary has 1-Click Unsubscribe. Alrighty's Stop mail goes further: one click unsubscribes in every way the message offers, archives the sender's mail, and moves their new mail out as it arrives. It contacts only senders whose mail passed DMARC and wasn't marked spam, so a scammer never learns your address is live.
• Clean up. It lists 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. A sure phishing message goes to Junk, and a likely one stays with a warning.
• Search that finds what you remember. Search runs on your computer and matches what you mean as well as the words you type, so "when is my flight" finds the airline's confirmation. Ask a question and get the answer, with the emails it came from.
• Your own AI works in your mail. Claude, ChatGPT's desktop app, Codex, Cursor or a local model can read and search your mail over a local MCP server. It can also work in a window you watch: open mail, write replies, file messages. Nothing sends until you click Send.
• Suggested replies. A draft in your voice waits under the message, written from what you sent that person before. It's always a draft, and you send it.

Where your mail and logins go. Your mail stays with Apple, Google and Microsoft. Alrighty keeps its copy and its search index on your computer. Your passwords and sign-ins stay on your computer too, encrypted with a key from your system's keychain, and no Alrighty server holds them.

AI. Connecting your own AI is off until you turn it on with Connect AI. Alrighty's own AI works differently. When you're signed in, opening a reply starts a suggested draft by itself, and Clean up sorts your senders in the background. Those features send the emails they need to Alrighty's server, which passes them to OpenAI and other model companies. Clean up sends each sender's address and up to 3 of their newest emails. Signed out, nothing goes to Alrighty's server.

Price. A 14-day trial with no card, then a Free plan or Pro. The Free plan has a small monthly AI allowance, so you can try the AI without paying. There are no ads on any plan.

What it can't do. It has no PGP or S/MIME encryption. It has no iPhone, Android or web app. It takes iCloud, Gmail and Outlook accounts only, so no Yahoo, Zoho, Proton or other IMAP accounts. It has no calendar. It's a new app with no long track record yet.

Pick it if you read mail mostly on a computer, your accounts are iCloud, Gmail and Outlook, and you want junk gone and your own AI at work in your inbox.

Apple Mail: best free alternative on Apple devices

Apple Mail comes with macOS and adds "iCloud, Gmail (Google), Exchange, school, work, or other" accounts (Apple). Mail is also on iPhone and iPad, so the 2-device limit on Canary's free plan doesn't come up.

Junk. You can unsubscribe from a list "directly in Mail" and block up to 3,000 senders (Apple).

Privacy and encryption. Mail Privacy Protection "prevents senders from learning your information" (Apple). Mail signs and encrypts with S/MIME, using a personal certificate in Keychain Access (Apple). Apple's Mail guide doesn't mention PGP.

AI. With Apple Intelligence on, "A short summary automatically appears under each unread email in your inbox," and you can turn summaries off (Apple). But "Apple Intelligence on macOS 27 is not available in all languages or regions."

The catch. No Windows or Android. Search depends on your Mac's Spotlight index and can miss mail; our Apple Mail search guide has the fixes, and our Apple Mail alternatives page covers why people leave it.

Pick it if all your devices are Apple and you want free, with S/MIME if you need encryption.

Spark: closest to Canary across devices, with monthly billing

Spark runs on Mac, iPhone, Windows and Android, like Canary. Its free plan lists unlimited email accounts, Smart Inbox and a calendar. Unlike Canary, it bills monthly: Plus is $10 a month or $99 a year, and Pro is $20 a month or $199 a year (pricing). Paid plans come with a seven-day free trial.

Where your mail goes. This is the big difference from Canary. Spark's privacy page says some features "require our server-side email processing to work," and push needs it too. For Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo it stores "an application-specific token." For AOL, Exchange and custom IMAP accounts it stores your login, and says "we additionally encrypt your password in the database."

AI. Spark +AI is in the paid plans, with "a limited free preview" on Free. It runs on the Azure OpenAI Service, which "will not retain the data for more than 30 days" (Spark).

What to know. Spark's pages don't mention PGP.

Pick it if you want Canary's reach on every device and would rather pay by the month. Our Spark alternatives page covers its server side in full.

Mailspring: best free app that skips the vendor's servers

Mailspring says "your email goes straight from your mail provider to your machine, not through our servers," and that it supports "Gmail, iCloud, Office 365, FastMail, Outlook.com, Yahoo!, and IMAP/SMTP" (Mailspring). Its FAQ says it "never sends your credentials to the cloud" (FAQ).

Price. It's "free forever for Mac, Windows, and Linux!" Pro is $8 a month or $85 a year, and adds read receipts, link tracking, send later, follow-up reminders and templates (pricing).

What it can't do. "POP3 support is not planned." Exchange Web Services and ActiveSync aren't supported, and Google's Advanced Protection blocks it (FAQ). Pro features store metadata that "may contain encoded recipient email addresses" (data collection). Its pages list no AI, no PGP and no phone app.

Pick it if you used Canary on a Mac and a Windows or Linux PC, and you want no login on anyone's server.

Thunderbird: best free app with PGP built in

Thunderbird is "Free forever," "funded by user donations," and lets you "Manage all accounts separately or in a unified inbox" (Thunderbird). Its download page lists Mac, Windows and Linux, plus Thunderbird Mobile for Android on Google Play and F-Droid. It lists no iPhone app.

Encryption. This is why Canary's Pro+ users look at Thunderbird. OpenPGP has been "enabled by default" since version 78.2.1 (release notes), and Mozilla says "Thunderbird has been offering built-in support for S/MIME, and will continue to do so" (Mozilla). It costs nothing.

Where your mail goes. Its privacy notice says your messages "are stored and processed locally on your device." It says "Login credentials are not stored on your device; instead, they are exchanged for OAuth tokens." It "sends telemetry about your interactions with Thunderbird," and you can opt out.

What to know. Its pages list no AI features. You may need to add iCloud by hand with its manual setup guide.

Pick it if you want PGP for free on your Mac and PC. Our Thunderbird alternatives page compares it further.

eM Client: best one-time purchase with PGP

eM Client runs on Windows, macOS, Android and iOS (eM Client). Its free plan is "Home use on 1 device" with 2 email accounts and no commercial use. Personal is $49.95 a year, or $74.95 once, for up to 3 devices and unlimited accounts (pricing). The phone apps are "free and need no license."

Encryption. eM Client does PGP. Its blog says "To start using PGP email encryption in our desktop app, go to Settings > Signing and Encryption > Certificates and Keys" (eM Client).

Where your mail goes. Its privacy policy says eM Client "never retrieves and has no access to the content of your emails." Like Canary, push uses your "encrypted login and password or a special authorization token."

AI. The yearly plans include the AI Add-on. The one-time license doesn't list it. Its AI uses OpenAI, or "connect your own custom AI provider" (eM Client).

Pick it if you want to pay once, use Windows too, and keep PGP.

A note for Proton Mail users

Canary shows a Proton Mail logo on its home page, but the pages we read don't say how it connects. To read a Proton account in another desktop app, Proton offers Bridge, which "adds end-to-end encryption to popular email apps, including Outlook, Thunderbird, and Apple Mail." Bridge "is available only with a paid plan that includes Proton Mail" (Proton). Alrighty can't add a Proton account. If privacy is the reason you chose Canary, our private email app for Mac page compares each app's encryption and what it sends to its own servers.

How to choose

• iCloud, Gmail and Outlook on a Mac, no login on any server, less junk, your own AI: Alrighty.
• Free on every Apple device, with S/MIME: Apple Mail.
• Canary's reach on Windows and Android, billed monthly: Spark.
• Free and direct on Mac, Windows and Linux: Mailspring.
• PGP for free: Thunderbird.
• PGP with a one-time license: eM Client.
• PGP on your phone as well: stay with Canary on Pro+.

For a wider list by price and features, see our best email apps for Mac. If you're also leaving Airmail, see our Airmail alternatives. If you used Canary for Send Later and read receipts, see our Mailbutler alternatives. More guides are on the blog.

For a side-by-side of the two apps, see Alrighty vs Canary Mail.

Questions

Is Canary Mail free?

Yes. The free plan is "Free forever" with unlimited mail accounts and a unified inbox, on up to 2 devices. AI Copilot and Inbox Cleaner need Growth at $36 a year, and PGP needs Pro+ at $100 a year.

Does Canary Mail store my password?

Canary's privacy policy says your data is stored on your device and never transferred to its servers. The exception is push: Canary "will temporarily store your email address, credentials, sender, subject line" on its server, and deletes them once the notification is delivered.

Which Canary alternative has free PGP?

Thunderbird has OpenPGP built in and enabled by default, and it's free. eM Client also does PGP. Apple Mail does S/MIME, not PGP. Alrighty, Spark and Mailspring don't list PGP.

Can I pay for Canary Mail monthly?

No. Canary says it "does not offer monthly subscriptions." You pay yearly or buy a lifetime license. Spark and Mailspring offer monthly plans.

Which AI models does Canary Mail use?

Its privacy policy says AI Copilot uses "models offered by top-tier providers such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Cohere, Google and others," and that your data won't train their models. Alrighty's own AI sends the emails it needs to its server, which passes them to OpenAI and other model companies.