Clean Email alternatives, and what each one reads

The best Clean Email alternative is Alrighty if you read iCloud, Gmail or Outlook mail on a computer and want cleanup inside the mail app you read in. Mailstrom is the pick for one big bulk cleanup. SaneBox files low-priority mail as it arrives, in any mail app. Leave Me Alone suits bulk unsubscribing across many providers, and Inbox Zero suits Gmail or Outlook users who want an open-source AI assistant. Gmail and Apple Mail have free tools built in.

People look for a Clean Email alternative for a few reasons: a subscription for cleaning alone, a separate app to clean in, or what its servers read and keep. This page starts with Clean Email's own words on all three, so you know what you're leaving, then shows what each alternative reads instead and how to delete your data on the way out.

How we checked

We read Clean Email's privacy policy, plans page, help pages and home page on November 3, 2026, along with each alternative's own pricing, help and privacy pages. Every fact about another company links to its source. Where a vendor's page didn't state something, we say so. Alrighty is our app, and it is listed first. For a full side-by-side of every cleanup and unsubscribe tool, see the best email cleaner app and the best app to unsubscribe from emails. This page answers one question: you're leaving Clean Email, so what do you move to?

What does Clean Email do with your mail?

Clean Email indexes your mailbox on its own servers. That is how it can sort thousands of messages from your phone. Its privacy policy says what that means:

• Metadata. "Clean Email accesses email metadata, including sender and recipient details, subjects, dates, folders, labels."
• Bodies, when you preview. It says "we will not read the bodies of your email messages." But when you ask for a full preview, "we also retrieve and process the selected message body so it can be displayed," and preview content "may be temporarily cached."
• Connected AI apps. "We do not share your email or account data with AI assistants" unless you connect one. If you do, through its MCP server, it shares what that assistant asks for within the permissions you grant: mailbox statistics, senders, subject lines, dates and preview excerpts, among others. The recipients include the app's provider, "such as OpenAI for ChatGPT or Codex." The policy also says message previews it hands an assistant can include time-limited links that open the full message without signing in, until the link expires.
• No ad sale. "We will never sell or rent your email address," and "We do not sell, rent, or share personal data for third-party advertising purposes."
• Google data. Its use of data from Google APIs "will adhere to" Google's API Services User Data Policy, "including the Limited Use requirements."

What it keeps after you stop. "All the data indexed for your email is automatically deleted from our servers 45 days after your last login," but only as long as no subscription is active. "Temporary operational records are normally deleted within 90 days after access ends." So stopping use is not the same as leaving. If your subscription renews, the 45-day clock doesn't apply.

None of this is unusual for a web cleaner, and Clean Email states it clearly. The question for you is whether you want a company's servers to hold an index of your mailbox at all.

What does Clean Email cost?

Clean Email has a free account and three paid plan sizes. The amounts weren't on its pages when we read them.

• Free. "Clean Email offers a free account that lets you clean up to 1,000 email messages at no cost to you" (help). Turning on Cleanup Reminders adds "an additional 100 messages per week for free" (help).
• Trial. A 14-day free trial of Premium, "plus 25 unsubscribe actions." "You can try our premium features for free, with no credit card!"
• Paid plans. The plans page lists plans for 1, 5 and 10 accounts. Monthly, they cost $9.99, $19.99 and $29.99. Yearly, they cost $29.99, $49.99 and $99.99. Its help page says "the prices are the same everywhere."

Premium features include Screener, the Unsubscriber and Auto Clean (Clean Email).

How to leave Clean Email

Cancel first, then delete. Clean Email's 45-day deletion only runs once no subscription is active.

1. Cancel your subscription. Its help page says to click Cancel your Subscription before you delete your data, so you aren't charged again.
2. Delete your data. Click the down arrow next to your email address at the top of the left menu, then Preferences, then the Data Removal tab. Click Delete Account and Data for each address, then Confirm (help). You can also write to support@clean.email.
3. Remove its access to Gmail. Open your Google Account's linked apps page, select Access to your Google Account, choose Clean Email, then See details, Remove access and Confirm. If you connected iCloud with an app-specific password, delete that password.
4. Disconnect any AI assistant you connected to Clean Email's MCP server, in that assistant's settings.

Clean Email alternatives at a glance

App	Price	Accounts	Runs on	What it reads
Alrighty	14-day trial with no card, then Free or Pro	iCloud, Gmail, Outlook	Mac (Apple silicon), Windows, Linux	Mail stays on your computer; Clean up sends each sender's newest few emails to its server
Mailstrom	$9 to $29.95 a month	Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, others	Not stated	Its servers; "WE DO NOT USE OR SHARE YOUR DATA"
SaneBox	From $7 a month	Gmail, Microsoft 365, iCloud, Yahoo, Fastmail, IMAP	Any mail app	Headers only, unless you turn on AI
Leave Me Alone	10 free unsubscribes; from $48/yr	Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, AOL, Fastmail, iCloud	Web	Your subscription emails; more with Rollups or Spam Blocker
Inbox Zero	Free app; AI plans from $20 a month	Gmail, Outlook	Web, desktop, iPhone	Email content and metadata
Gmail and Apple Mail	Free	Their own accounts	Web and phone; Mac	No new company
Clean Email	Free up to 1,000 messages; from $29.99/yr	Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, iCloud, AOL, Fastmail, IMAP	iPhone, iPad, Android, Mac, web	Metadata on its servers; bodies when you preview

Alrighty: best Clean Email alternative on a computer

Alrighty is a desktop mail app for Mac, Windows and Linux that puts iCloud, Gmail and Outlook accounts in one inbox. With Clean Email you read in one app and clean in another. Alrighty does both in one place.

• 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. This takes the place of Clean Email's sender lists and bulk actions.
• Stop mail. One click on a sender unsubscribes you in every way the message offers (one-click, an email to the list, or the list's page), archives their mail, and moves new mail from them out as it arrives. That covers what Clean Email's Unsubscriber and block do together.
• Safe unsubscribing. It only contacts senders whose mail passed DMARC and wasn't marked as spam, so a scammer doesn't learn that your address is live.
• Phishing checks. A message that is sure to be phishing goes to Junk. A likely one stays, with a warning.

Price. A 14-day trial with no card, then a Free plan or Pro. There are no ads on any plan.

What it reads. Your mail stays with iCloud, Google or Microsoft, and 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. Clean up does send mail to a server: for each sender, Alrighty sends their address, three facts the receiving mail server found about the message, and up to 3 of their newest emails (up to 2,000 characters each) to its server, which asks an AI model to sort them. That is more of each email than Clean Email's metadata index, for fewer emails. Its privacy page names OpenAI, Together AI and TypeSafe AI as the model companies it uses. While you're signed in, Clean up sorts senders in the background, and opening a reply starts a suggested draft. Connecting your own AI is off until you turn it on. Signed out, nothing goes to Alrighty's server.

What it can't do. There's no iPhone, Android or web app, so you can't clean up from your phone the way you could with Clean Email. It takes iCloud, Gmail and Outlook accounts only, not Yahoo, AOL, Fastmail or other IMAP. It's a full mail app, so you switch mail apps to use it, and it's new, with no long track record.

Pick it if you read iCloud, Gmail or Outlook mail on a computer and want cleanup in the app you read in, with no mailbox index on a vendor's servers.

Mailstrom: best for one big cleanup

Mailstrom is the closest tool to Clean Email's bulk cleanup. It 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, with one-click unsubscribe and one-click block of senders or subjects.

Price. Its pricing page shows the amounts. 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. There's a free trial; its length isn't stated. No free plan is listed.

What it reads. It connects to Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo through IMAP "via OAuth2," so it never has your password. Its home page says "WE DO NOT USE OR SHARE YOUR DATA." Its privacy policy says it "does not share information with third parties for their direct marketing purposes" and keeps data "up to three months" after you delete your account.

What it can't do. It's paid only, and Basic stops at 10,000 emails. It isn't a mail app, so like Clean Email you clean in a separate place. Its pages don't state its platforms.

Pick it if you liked Clean Email's bulk actions and want a price you can see before you sign up. Our Mailstrom alternatives compare it further.

SaneBox: best for filing mail as it arrives

SaneBox replaces Clean Email's Auto Clean rules with automatic sorting. It connects to your mailbox and moves low-priority mail into folders, so you 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). BlackHole removes a sender "from your inbox for good."

What it reads. "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 AI features are opt-in, and with them on it "may now process the body content of your emails to provide summaries." It says "We never share your data with third-party AI providers or advertisers."

Price. Billed every two years, plans cost $4.54, $7.46 or $22.04 a month (pricing). There's a free trial, but its pages give two different lengths. No free plan.

What it can't do. It sorts and files; it doesn't clear years of backlog in one pass. It has no free tier.

Pick it if you mostly used Auto Clean and want mail sorted on any provider, with a policy limited to headers.

Leave Me Alone: best for bulk unsubscribing on many providers

Leave Me Alone puts your subscriptions in one list to opt out of, rolls newsletters into a digest, and has a Screener for cold mail (Leave Me Alone). It "works with Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, AOL, Fastmail, iCloud, and many more!"

What it reads. It reads your subscription emails. Rollups store "the content of emails that you receive from that sender," removed three months after the Rollup is sent. Spam Blocker reads "body text of the emails" and may keep samples to train its classifiers, and "Deleting your account doesn't immediately remove samples already collected from your mail" (privacy). It says "We don't sell user data," and "We do not use any private AI companies (such as OpenAI or Anthropic) to classify emails or create summaries."

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).

What it can't do. It isn't a mail app, so you still clean in a separate place.

Pick it if unsubscribing was the main thing you used Clean Email for, and you want a one-time pass instead of a subscription.

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

Inbox Zero is an open-source AI email assistant "built for Gmail and Outlook" (Inbox Zero). Its paid plans include "Bulk unsubscribe and archive emails," cold-email blocking, AI sorting and reply drafts. Its email app is free "on web, desktop, and iPhone."

What it reads. It reads "Email content, metadata (sender, recipient, subject lines, timestamps, folders/labels), and email account settings," and says it does not permanently store "Full email content (body text)" (privacy). Its providers "may not train their AI models using your data."

Price. Starter is $20 a month, or $18 a month billed yearly. Plus is $35 a month for 2 accounts. AI features have a 7-day free trial (pricing).

What it can't do. It takes Gmail and Outlook only; iCloud isn't listed. The cleanup tools sit in the paid AI plans, and they read email content.

Pick it if you're on Gmail or Outlook, want AI sorting along with cleanup, and value code you can read.

Gmail and Apple Mail: the free tools you already have

If Clean Email's free 1,000 messages were enough for you, the built-in tools may be too.

Gmail. On a computer, expand More in the left sidebar and select Manage subscriptions. Next to each sender, click Unsubscribe. "Gmail unsubscribes you from all active mailing lists related to the sender," and new mail from them goes to Spam while the sender processes it (Google). Google says the feature "is gradually rolling out and may not be available to you yet."

Apple Mail. "In the banner, click Unsubscribe, then click OK in the alert that appears." To block a sender, click the arrow beside their name and choose Block Sender. "You can block up to 3,000 senders" (Apple).

What they read. Gmail's tool is part of Gmail, and Apple Mail runs on your Mac, so neither adds a new company.

What they can't do. Gmail's page covers Gmail only. Apple Mail works one message at a time, with no list of all your subscriptions. Neither does bulk cleanup of old mail or rules like Auto Clean. For that, see the best apps to bulk delete emails. For a sender who ignores you, see how to block a sender in Gmail, Outlook and Apple Mail.

Pick them if you want free and nothing new connected to your mail.

How to choose

• On a computer, with iCloud, Gmail or Outlook, cleaning inside the app you read in: Alrighty.
• One big bulk cleanup: Mailstrom.
• Auto Clean's job, sorting mail as it arrives in any app: SaneBox.
• Bulk unsubscribing on Yahoo, AOL or Fastmail, without a subscription: Leave Me Alone.
• Gmail or Outlook with an AI assistant, open source: Inbox Zero.
• Free, nothing new connected: Gmail's Manage subscriptions or Apple Mail's banner.
• Cleaning from an iPhone or Android: Clean Email still fits that job best. Alrighty has no phone app.

Leaving Unroll.me as well? See Unroll.me alternatives. Weighing Trimbox? See Trimbox alternatives. For big senders like Facebook, turn their email off in their own settings: stop emails has the steps.

For a side-by-side of the two apps, see Alrighty vs Clean Email.

Questions

Does Clean Email read your emails?

Its policy says it reads metadata: senders, recipients, subjects, dates, folders and labels. It says it won't read message bodies, but it retrieves and processes a body when you open a full preview, and may cache it for a short time. If you connect an AI assistant, it shares preview excerpts and other data with that assistant's provider.

Does Clean Email delete your data when you stop using it?

Only when no subscription is active. Its policy says indexed data is deleted from its servers 45 days after your last login, as long as there's no active subscription. To delete sooner, use Preferences, Data Removal, Delete Account and Data, after you cancel.

How much is Clean Email?

The free account cleans up to 1,000 messages, and a 14-day Premium trial needs no card. Paid plans for 1, 5 or 10 accounts cost $9.99, $19.99 or $29.99 a month, or $29.99, $49.99 or $99.99 a year.

Is there a free alternative to Clean Email?

Gmail's Manage subscriptions and Apple Mail's unsubscribe banner are free. Leave Me Alone lets you unsubscribe from 10 emails for free, and Inbox Zero's email app is free, with cleanup in paid plans. Alrighty has a Free plan after its 14-day trial.

Which Clean Email alternative works on iPhone?

Inbox Zero has a free iPhone app, with cleanup in its paid plans. SaneBox works in whatever mail app you use on your phone, and Gmail's Manage subscriptions has iPhone steps. Alrighty has no iPhone app.