HEY email alternatives that keep your address

The best HEY email alternative depends on why you're leaving. To keep your iCloud, Gmail or Outlook address and still keep unwanted mail out, use Alrighty: it lists the senders you don't want and stops each one with one action. For a screener like HEY's on your current address, Spark's Gatekeeper and Clean Email's Screener both hold first-time senders until you decide. SaneBox moves the mail it judges unimportant out of your inbox in any app. If you want a new address anyway, Fastmail and Proton are paid email services like HEY, and both work with your own domain.

Most lists for this search name other email services, such as Proton or Tuta. That misses the most common reason people leave HEY: it needs a new @hey.com address, and it can't check the address you already have. This page starts from that. It covers what HEY does well, what you lose by leaving, and which tools give you HEY's best idea, screening, on the address everyone already knows.

How we checked

We read each service's own features, pricing, FAQ and privacy pages on November 3, 2026, and every fact about another product links to its source. We compared price, whether you keep your current address, what each tool does with a first-time sender, and where it does the work. Alrighty is our app, and it is listed first.

What HEY does, and why people leave it

HEY is an email service from 37signals with its own @hey.com address and its own apps for "Web, Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android" (pricing). It's built around a few ideas that other apps have copied since (features):

• The Screener. "The first time someone emails you, you get to decide if you want to hear from them again." Senders you approve go to your Imbox. A Speakeasy code in the subject line lets a new contact skip the Screener.
• The Imbox. "Your Imbox is where important, immediate emails go from people or services you care about."
• The Feed. The Feed shows your newsletters already open, "with the newest at the top. Just scroll to read."
• The Paper Trail. Receipts, confirmations and transactional emails go there, "out of your way, but easy to find when you need them."
• Tracker blocking. "HEY blocks these trackers and tells you who's spying on you."
• Reply Later, Set Aside and a calendar are built in too.

Price. HEY for You is $99 a year, billed yearly only: "We only offer annual billing at this time." The trial is 30 days, and "We don't ask for a credit card to try HEY." HEY for Families is $179 a year for up to four more people. HEY for Domains, for your own domain, is $12 per user a month, with the first user at $10 (pricing).

Why people leave. HEY "is a replacement for those services," not an app for them. "HEY does not import your existing email from Gmail, Outlook, iCloud," and "you can't log in and check other email accounts from the HEY apps. HEY doesn't support IMAP or POP." You also can't use another mail app: "off-the-shelf 3rd party email apps won't work with HEY" (FAQ). So you give everyone a new address, or forward your old one to HEY, and you pay $99 a year with no monthly option.

Before you leave HEY

HEY lets you take your mail with you, and the rules depend on whether you paid (FAQ):

• Export. "You can export an MBOX file with all your email and attachments any time," which you can import "into Apple Mail, Gmail, Outlook, and other services." Contacts export as one vCard.
• Forwarding. If you paid for your first year, you can forward mail sent to your @hey.com address to any other address, "while your account is open, or after it's closed." Trial accounts "don't include forever-forwarding."
• Your address. After a paid first year, "your @hey.com address is yours forever," even if you stop paying. If you never pay, or you get a refund in the first year, the address "will be recycled after 90 days."

So if you paid for a year, set up forwarding to the address you're moving to. People who still write to your HEY address will reach you there.

HEY alternatives at a glance

Tool	Price	Keeps your address	What happens to a first-time sender	Where it works
Alrighty	14-day trial with no card, then Free or Pro	Yes: iCloud, Gmail, Outlook	Lands in your Inbox; Clean up lists the ones you don't want	Mac (Apple silicon), Windows, Linux; Clean up on its server
Spark Gatekeeper	Paid Spark plans, from $99 a year	Yes: iCloud, Gmail, Outlook, IMAP	Waits until you accept or block	Spark's servers for some features
Clean Email Screener	Plans for 1, 5 or 10 accounts	Yes: Gmail, iCloud, Outlook, IMAP	Held in quarantine until you allow, block or file it	Clean Email's servers
SaneBox	From $7 a month	Yes: Gmail, iCloud, Microsoft, IMAP	Sorted by importance; unimportant mail leaves the inbox	SaneBox's servers, headers only
Fastmail	$5 a month, paid yearly	No, unless you own your domain	Not a screener; spam filtering	Fastmail's servers
Proton Mail	Free; Mail Plus $3.99 a month, paid yearly	No, unless you own your domain	Not a screener; phishing blocking	Proton's servers, encrypted
HEY	$99 a year	No, a new @hey.com address	Waits in the Screener until you say yes	HEY's servers

Alrighty: best HEY alternative to keep your iCloud, Gmail or Outlook address

Alrighty is a mail app for Mac, Windows and Linux that puts iCloud, Gmail and Outlook accounts in one inbox, so you keep the address you have. It isn't a screener. A new sender's mail lands in your Inbox as usual. Alrighty's answer to unwanted mail comes after it arrives, with one action for each sender instead of a yes or no for every stranger.

• 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. You review one list instead of answering each new sender.
• Stop mail. One action ends a sender's mail. It unsubscribes 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. It unsubscribes only from senders whose mail passed DMARC and wasn't marked spam, so a scammer never learns your address is live.
• Phishing checks. A message that is sure to be phishing goes to Junk. A likely one stays, with a warning. These checks run on your computer.
• Groups, on Pro. Pro sorts Inbox mail into groups you make in Settings, so mail such as newsletters or receipts can leave your Inbox, the way HEY's Feed and Paper Trail do.

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, and Alrighty keeps its copy and search index on your computer. To sort senders for Clean up, it sends each sender's address, three facts the receiving server found, and up to 3 of their newest emails (2,000 characters each) to Alrighty's server, which asks an AI model. While you're signed in, Clean up runs in the background, and opening a reply starts a suggested draft. Those AI features go to OpenAI and other model companies through Alrighty's server. Sorting a group with AI sends the sender, subject and start of the body.

What it can't do. It has no screener, so a cold sender reaches your Inbox once before you stop them. It has no iPhone or web app, so it can't replace HEY's phone apps. It takes iCloud, Gmail and Outlook accounts only, not Yahoo, Fastmail or other IMAP. It has no calendar. It's new, with no long track record.

Pick it if you want your old address back and you'd rather clear unwanted senders in one pass than screen every stranger.

Spark Gatekeeper: best screener on your current address, across devices

Spark's Gatekeeper is the closest thing to HEY's Screener in a mail app that takes your own accounts. "The first time someone emails you, Spark screens the sender - giving you the option to either accept or block any future contact from this sender" (Spark). In its settings, you choose to "Screen new senders before the inbox" or "Screen new senders inside the inbox" (help).

Price. Gatekeeper is "a paid plans feature." Plus is $10 a month or $99 a year, the same as HEY, and Pro is $20 a month or $199 a year (pricing). Spark's free plan has unlimited accounts but no Gatekeeper.

Accounts and platforms. Spark works with iCloud, Exchange, Outlook, Yahoo, Google and IMAP (Spark), on Mac, iPhone, Windows and Android.

Where your mail goes. Spark says some features "require our server-side email processing to work." For AOL, Exchange and custom IMAP accounts, it stores your login and password, encrypted (privacy). Its Gatekeeper page doesn't say where screening runs. Our Spark alternatives page has more.

Pick it if you want HEY's yes-or-no screening on your current address, on your Mac and your phone, and you'll pay for a Spark plan.

Clean Email Screener: best screener that keeps your mail app

Clean Email's Screener "intercepts messages from new senders and safely holds them in quarantine for your review (nothing is lost)" (Clean Email). It works on your account itself, not in one app, so you keep Apple Mail or any other app: "you can continue using Apple Mail, Thunderbird, or any email client you love."

How it screens. You choose what it holds: messages from mailing lists, messages sent automatically, and "Real humans emailing you for the first time." For each sender, you allow them, block them for good, or send their mail to a folder. It can also send you regular summaries of what's waiting.

Accounts. "Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, AOL, iCloud, and any IMAP-compatible email service."

Where your mail goes. Clean Email connects to your account from its servers and indexes "email metadata, including sender and recipient details, subjects" (privacy).

What it can't do. Its plans page lists plans for 1, 5 or 10 accounts, monthly or yearly, but showed no amounts when we read it. The Screener page makes no phishing claims. Our email cleaner guide covers its other tools.

Pick it if you want HEY's Screener on your Gmail, iCloud or Outlook address and want to keep the mail app you already use.

SaneBox: best for pushing unimportant mail aside in any app

SaneBox isn't a screener. It sorts mail by importance and "Automatically filters out unimportant emails," which go to a separate folder you check when you want (SaneBox). That's closer to HEY's Imbox than its Screener. BlackHole removes a sender "from your inbox for good," and a Daily Digest lists the unimportant mail you haven't opened.

Accounts. "Gmail, Microsoft 365, Apple iCloud, Yahoo! Mail and Fastmail," plus "any IMAP, Microsoft Exchange or ActiveSync server." Because it works on the account, the sorting shows up in every app and on every device.

Where your mail goes. "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).

Price. "Our plans start at just $7 per month, with significant savings for annual subscriptions" (SaneBox). There's no free plan. Its home page offers a 7-day free trial, and its pricing help page says "two weeks."

Pick it if you liked HEY's calm Imbox more than the Screener, and want it on your current address in any app.

Fastmail and Proton: if you want a new address anyway

If you left HEY for its price or its rules, not its address, two paid email services are worth a look. Both let you use other mail apps, which HEY doesn't, and both let you bring your own domain.

Fastmail. The Individual plan is $6 a month, or $5 a month paid yearly ($60 for 12 months), with a free trial "for up to 30 days" (pricing). It lists "Use your own domains to make custom addresses," Masked Email, calendars, and "Use with third-party apps (e.g. Outlook, iPhone Mail)." It says it has "no ads, ever" (Fastmail). Note that Alrighty can't add a Fastmail account.

Proton Mail. Proton has a free plan, and Mail Plus is $3.99 a month, billed $47.88 for the first 12 months (pricing). It says its "zero-access architecture means we can never access your emails" (Proton), and you can "Connect your Gmail account for an automatic import and ongoing sync" (Proton). Its desktop app needs a paid plan after a 14-day trial (Proton), and Bridge, for apps like Apple Mail, is paid only (Bridge).

Neither has a screener like HEY's on the pages we read.

How to choose

• Keep your iCloud, Gmail or Outlook address, and end unwanted senders in one pass: Alrighty.
• HEY-style screening on your current address, on Mac, phone and Windows: Spark Gatekeeper, on a paid plan.
• HEY-style screening, and keep Apple Mail or any other app: Clean Email's Screener.
• Unimportant mail pushed aside in every app: SaneBox.
• A new address with other apps allowed: Fastmail.
• A new, encrypted address, with a free plan: Proton Mail.
• Screening every stranger matters more than your old address: stay with HEY.

Our spam blocker guide compares screeners with filters, and our newsletter app guide covers apps like HEY's Feed. If the Screener was mostly for cold sales mail, see how to stop cold emails. If you liked HEY's calm design, see the best minimal email apps, and if you miss Google's old Inbox app, see our Inbox by Gmail alternatives. More guides are on the blog.

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

Questions

Can HEY check my Gmail or iCloud account?

No. HEY's FAQ says "you can't log in and check other email accounts from the HEY apps. HEY doesn't support IMAP or POP." You can forward new mail from Gmail or iCloud into HEY, but HEY doesn't import your old mail.

Is there a free alternative to HEY?

Proton Mail has a free plan, with a new Proton address. To keep your current address, Alrighty has a Free plan after its 14-day trial, and Spark has a free plan, though Gatekeeper needs a paid plan. HEY itself has no free plan after its 30-day trial.

What happens to my @hey.com address if I cancel?

If you paid for your first year, the address stays yours forever, and you can forward its mail to any address. If you never paid, or got a refund in the first year, HEY recycles the address after 90 days. You can export all your mail as an MBOX file either way.

Can I use HEY with my own domain?

Yes. HEY for Domains hosts your domain for $12 per user a month, with the first user at $10. A personal HEY account can also send from an external address using SMTP. Neither lets HEY check a Gmail, iCloud or Outlook inbox.

What is the difference between a screener and an unsubscribe tool?

A screener holds mail from every first-time sender until you say yes, so strangers never reach your inbox unasked. An unsubscribe tool works on senders already in your inbox and asks them to stop. HEY, Spark Gatekeeper and Clean Email's Screener screen. Alrighty's Stop mail and Clean up end senders after their first message. Our unsubscribe app guide explains the difference.