The most private email app for Mac
A private, secure email app for Mac, compared by where it keeps your mail and logins, what it sends to its own servers, and its tracker and PGP support.
By Emmett Miller
The most private email app for Mac depends on what you want kept private. Alrighty keeps your iCloud, Gmail and Outlook mail and logins on your Mac, and tells you exactly which features use its server. Apple Mail is the free, secure choice, with Mail Privacy Protection and S/MIME built in. Thunderbird is free and open source with OpenPGP built in. Mimestream keeps Gmail on your Mac and blocks trackers. Canary adds PGP on its top plan. MailMate does OpenPGP and S/MIME for IMAP power users.
Most lists of private email apps mix two different things: mail apps, and mail providers such as Proton Mail. And few of them answer the question a mail app actually decides: where it keeps your mail and your passwords, and what it sends to its own company's servers. This page answers that for each app, with the vendor's own words.
How we checked
We read each vendor's own privacy, security, help and pricing pages on November 3, 2026, and every fact links to its source. For each Mac app we noted where it keeps your mail and logins, what it sends to its own servers for push, sync or AI, how it handles remote images and trackers, and whether it supports PGP or S/MIME encryption. Where a vendor's page doesn't say, we say "not stated." We did not test the apps. Alrighty is our app, and it's listed first.
A private email app or a private email provider?
A mail app is the program on your Mac. A provider holds your address and your mail on its servers. Proton Mail and Tuta are providers. Proton says its "zero-access architecture means we can never access your emails" (Proton), and Tuta calls itself an "end-to-end encrypted email service" (Tuta). Both have Mac apps for their own accounts. To read Proton mail in another Mac app, you need Proton Mail Bridge, which "is available only with a paid plan" (Proton).
Switching providers means a new address. If you want to keep your iCloud, Gmail or Outlook address, pick a private app instead. That's what the rest of this page compares.
Private Mac email apps at a glance
| App | Price | Accounts | Mail and logins kept | Sent to its own servers | Remote images and trackers | PGP or S/MIME |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alrighty | 14-day trial, then Free or Pro | iCloud, Gmail, Outlook | Your Mac, logins encrypted | AI and Clean up, when signed in; usage data you can turn off | Signed in, fetched by its server | Neither |
| Apple Mail | Comes with macOS | iCloud, Gmail, Exchange, other | Not stated in Mail's guide | Not stated for Mail | Mail Privacy Protection, or block all | S/MIME |
| Thunderbird | Free | Not named on its home page | Your Mac | Telemetry, on until you opt out | Not stated on pages read | OpenPGP and S/MIME |
| Mimestream | $49.99/yr | Gmail only | Your Mac | None stated; connects straight to Gmail | Blocks trackers from 75+ services | Not mentioned |
| Canary Mail | Free; $36/yr or $100/yr | iCloud, Gmail, Outlook, IMAP | Your device | Push stores credentials for a while; AI providers | Trackers blocked by default | PGP on Pro+ ($100/yr) |
| MailMate | $10 every 3 months | IMAP | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated | OpenPGP and S/MIME |
| Mailspring | Free; Pro $8/mo or $85/yr | iCloud, Gmail, Microsoft 365, IMAP | Your Mac | Pro feature metadata; crash reports | Not stated | Not mentioned |
| Spark | Free; Plus $99/yr, Pro $199/yr | iCloud, Gmail, Outlook, IMAP | Spark's servers hold tokens or passwords | Server-side processing for push and features | Not stated on pages read | Not mentioned on pages read |
Alrighty: best private email app for iCloud, Gmail and Outlook
Alrighty is a mail app for Mac, Windows and Linux that puts iCloud, Gmail and Outlook accounts in one inbox. Your mail stays with iCloud, Google or Microsoft, and Alrighty keeps its copy and its search index on your Mac.
Logins and tokens. Your passwords and tokens stay on your Mac, encrypted with a key from your system's keychain. No Alrighty server holds them.
What it sends to its own server. We'd rather say this plainly:
- AI features (answers from your mail, suggested replies, sorting into groups) 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 by itself. Sorting sends the sender, subject and start of the body.
- Clean up sends each sender's address, three facts the receiving server found, and up to three of their newest emails (2,000 characters each) to Alrighty's server, which asks a model to sort them.
- Some unsubscribes happen on the server. When the only way off a list is the list's web page, Alrighty finishes it in a browser on its server, so the sender sees neither your Mac nor its address.
- Usage data. Alrighty reports which features you use and crash reports. It never includes what your mail says, and you can turn it off with Share usage data in Settings.
Scam safety. Unsubscribing contacts only senders whose mail passed DMARC and wasn't marked spam, so a scammer never learns your address is live. A sure phishing message goes to Junk, and a likely one stays with a warning. Stop mail ends a sender's mail in one click.
Your own AI. If you connect Claude, ChatGPT or a local model over Alrighty's MCP server, that runs on your Mac, and only your Mac's programs can reach it. What the AI reads goes to whoever runs its model, or nowhere with a local model. Our guide to the email app for Claude and ChatGPT covers it.
Price. A 14-day trial with no card, then a Free plan or Pro. No ads on any plan.
What it can't do. It has no PGP or S/MIME encryption. It has no iPhone app. It takes iCloud, Gmail and Outlook accounts only, so no Yahoo, Fastmail or other IMAP. It has no calendar. It's a new app with no long track record yet.
Pick it if you want your logins and mail kept on your Mac and a clear list of what touches a server, with strong tools against junk and scams.
Apple Mail: best free secure email app, built into macOS
Apple Mail comes with macOS and adds "iCloud, Gmail (Google), Exchange, school, work, or other" accounts (Apple).
Remote images and trackers. Mail Privacy Protection "prevents senders from learning your information." With Protect Mail Activity on, "your IP address is hidden from senders" and remote content is downloaded privately in the background, not when you open the message (Apple). With it off, you can hide your IP address and block all remote content separately. Block All Remote Content shows a banner, and you choose whether to load it.
Encryption. Mail signs and encrypts with S/MIME. You need a personal certificate from a certificate authority in Keychain Access (Apple). A closed lock means the message will be encrypted, which needs the recipient's certificate too. If they don't have one, it goes out unencrypted (Apple). Apple's Mail guide doesn't mention PGP.
Address privacy. Hide My Email lets you "send and receive messages without having to share your real email address." It needs iCloud+ (Apple).
What to know. Apple Intelligence can summarize mail, and "A short summary automatically appears under each unread email" once it's on (Apple). The Mail guide doesn't say where those summaries run. Search depends on Spotlight and can miss mail; see our Apple Mail search guide.
Pick it if you want free, built in, and the strongest image privacy with no setup.
Thunderbird: best free, open-source app with OpenPGP
Thunderbird is free and open source on Mac, Windows and Linux. You can "Manage all accounts separately or in a unified inbox" (Thunderbird).
Mail and logins. Its privacy notice says "your email messages, and your account's address book are stored and processed locally on your device." Passwords are "exchanged for OAuth tokens," which stay "confined within your user profile" on desktop.
What it sends to Mozilla. "Thunderbird sends telemetry about your interactions with Thunderbird to us," and you can opt out. During account setup, "your email domain may be sent to Mozilla's configuration database," though your full address is not stored on its servers (same page). It has no AI features, and says it doesn't "secretly train AI with your private conversations."
Encryption. OpenPGP is built in, "enabled by default" since version 78.2.1 (Thunderbird). Mozilla says "Thunderbird has been offering built-in support for S/MIME, and will continue to do so" (Mozilla).
What to know. Telemetry is on until you turn it off. The pages we read don't say how it handles remote images. Our Thunderbird alternatives page covers other options.
Pick it if you want open source and PGP at no cost, and you'll switch off telemetry.
Mimestream: best private Gmail app for Mac
Mimestream is a Mac app for Gmail only. It "only stores your data and tokens on your device," and "The app establishes direct connections to the Gmail API, without going through any intermediary sync service" (Mimestream).
Trackers. "Mimestream blocks trackers from 75+ common services" (same page).
Encryption. The home page mentions neither PGP nor S/MIME.
Price. $49.99 a year, or $4.99 a month, after a 14-day trial with no credit card (pricing).
What it can't do. No iCloud or Outlook accounts. Search runs on Gmail's servers. If you have other accounts, see our Mimestream alternatives.
Pick it if all your mail is Gmail and you want nothing between your Mac and Google.
Canary Mail: best for PGP across Mac and phone
Canary runs on Mac, iPhone, iPad, Windows and Android, and takes iCloud, Gmail, Outlook, Exchange and IMAP.
Mail and logins. Canary's privacy policy says your account details and mail are "stored on your device and is never transferred to our servers." For push, "Canary will temporarily store your email address, credentials, sender, subject line" on its server, and deletes the data for an email once its notification is delivered. Cloud Sync data "is stored securely in the Cloud in encrypted form."
AI. Its AI Copilot, on paid plans, uses "models offered by top-tier providers such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Cohere, Google and others" (same page).
Trackers and encryption. "Tracker-blocking runs by default in every inbox view." For encryption, "Encrypt end to end with PGP, or use SecureSend when your recipient doesn't have PGP," which is "Available on Pro+" (Canary).
Price. Free, Growth at $36 a year, or Pro+ at $100 a year, with no monthly billing (pricing).
What to know. PGP needs the top plan. Push holds your credentials on its server for a time. The security page doesn't say where your private keys are stored.
Pick it if you want PGP in a modern app that also runs on your phone.
MailMate: best for OpenPGP and S/MIME power users
MailMate is "an IMAP email client for macOS" with "cryptographic encryption/signing (OpenPGP and S/MIME)" (MailMate).
Mail and logins. Its pages we read don't say where it keeps your mail and passwords, or what it sends to its maker.
Price. "$10 every 3 months," after a trial with no feature limits. A Free Mode keeps every feature, but "Outgoing emails show 'MailMate Free Mode' as the email client name" (pricing).
What to know. IMAP only, Mac only. Its download page calls the stable version "The more than 4 year old public release" (download), and newer builds are betas.
Pick it if you sign and encrypt mail often, use IMAP, and like a keyboard-driven app.
Mailspring: best free app that skips its maker's servers
Mailspring is free on Mac, Windows and Linux and takes "Gmail, iCloud, Office 365, FastMail, Outlook.com, Yahoo!, and IMAP/SMTP" (Mailspring). It says "your email goes straight from your mail provider to your machine, not through our servers."
What it sends to Mailspring. "Your email credentials, passwords, etc. are never sent to the cloud" (Mailspring). Pro features store some metadata: message headers are hashed into IDs, and for read receipts and link tracking "the stored metadata may contain encoded recipient email addresses." Thread Sharing, if you turn it on, syncs that thread to the cloud. JavaScript crash reports go to Sentry, and other crash data to Mailspring (same page).
Encryption. The pages we read don't mention PGP or S/MIME.
Price. Free, or Pro at $8 a month or $85 a year (pricing).
What to know. Pro's read receipts and link tracking track the people you write to. IMAP only, with no Exchange Web Services.
Pick it if you want free and direct, with Yahoo, Fastmail or other IMAP accounts.
Spark: convenient, but its servers hold your access
Spark is on this list because many people ask whether it's private. It's open about how it works, on its privacy page.
Mail and logins. For Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo, Spark stores "an application-specific token," not your password. For AOL, Exchange and custom IMAP accounts, Spark stores your login and says "we additionally encrypt your password in the database." It runs on Google Cloud.
What it sends to its servers. Some features "require our server-side email processing to work," and "Spark requires the server-side processing to send you push notifications." Encrypted notification data is deleted 4 hours after the notification is sent (same page).
AI. Spark's AI runs on Azure OpenAI, which "will not retain the data for more than 30 days" and "does not use this data to train models" (Spark).
Encryption. The pages we read don't mention PGP or S/MIME.
Pick it if you want one app on every device and accept that Spark's servers hold your access. If not, our Spark alternatives list apps that connect straight to your provider.
How to choose
- iCloud, Gmail and Outlook kept on your Mac, and a plain list of what uses a server: Alrighty.
- Free, built in, with Mail Privacy Protection and S/MIME: Apple Mail.
- Free, open source, with OpenPGP: Thunderbird.
- Gmail only, nothing between you and Google: Mimestream.
- PGP on your Mac and your phone: Canary Mail, on Pro+.
- OpenPGP and S/MIME for IMAP power users: MailMate.
- Free and direct, with Yahoo, Fastmail or other IMAP accounts: Mailspring.
- A new encrypted address, not a new app: Proton Mail or Tuta.
For a wider comparison by price and features, see our best email apps for Mac. If you're leaving Edison Mail because its maker sells research built from email receipts, see our Edison Mail alternatives.
Questions
What is the most secure email app for Mac?
For encryption, Thunderbird and MailMate support both OpenPGP and S/MIME, Apple Mail supports S/MIME, and Canary supports PGP on Pro+. For keeping your logins off a vendor's servers, Alrighty, Thunderbird, Mimestream and Mailspring say they keep them on your Mac.
Is Apple Mail private?
Apple Mail has Mail Privacy Protection. With Protect Mail Activity on, your IP address is hidden from senders and remote content downloads privately in the background, not when you open the message. Apple says this "prevents senders from learning your information."
Do I need Proton Mail for private email?
Only if you want a new address whose mail the provider can't read. Proton and Tuta are providers, not apps for your current account. If you keep your iCloud, Gmail or Outlook address, a private Mac app protects your logins and blocks trackers, but your provider still holds your mail.
Which email apps store my password on their servers?
Spark stores your login for AOL, Exchange and custom IMAP accounts, encrypted in its database, and a token for Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo. Canary stores your credentials on its server for a while to send push notifications. Alrighty, Mimestream, Mailspring and Thunderbird say they keep your logins on your device.
Does Alrighty send my email to its servers?
Not to read or sync your mail, which goes straight from your provider to your Mac. When you're signed in, its AI features and Clean up send the emails they need to Alrighty's server, which passes them to an AI model (OpenAI's for answers and replies). Some unsubscribes finish on its server.