Alrighty vs Airmail

Airmail is the right pick if you want one mail app on your Mac, iPhone, iPad and Vision Pro, with Yahoo, AOL or POP accounts and lots of ways to customize it. Alrighty is the pick if your accounts are iCloud, Gmail and Outlook and you want newsletters stopped rather than filtered, with search that finds what you remember. Both let an AI assistant such as Claude read your mail, and they do it in different ways.

The facts about Airmail below come from its Mac App Store listing, its website, its help center and its privacy policy, as of November 2026. Alrighty is our app.

How do Alrighty and Airmail compare?

	Alrighty	Airmail
Devices	Mac (Apple silicon), Windows, Linux	Mac (macOS 14.6 or later), iPhone, iPad, Vision Pro
Accounts	iCloud, Gmail, Outlook and Microsoft 365	Exchange, iCloud, Gmail, IMAP, POP3, Google Apps, Yahoo, AOL, Outlook.com, Live.com
More than one account	Free and Pro	Pro only
Price	14-day trial with no card, then Free or Pro	Free download; Pro $7.99 a month or $49.99 a year
Where mail is processed	Your computer; AI features send the emails they need to its server	"Primarily" on your device; Send Later and Snooze store your login for a time
Newsletters	Stop mail ends them; Clean up lists them	Smart inbox filters them out of view
AI	Reply drafts when signed in; built-in MCP, off until you connect it	Apple's Writing Tools; Ai Composer add-on; MCP as a separate download

Is Airmail free, and what do Airmail Pro and Alrighty cost?

Airmail is a free download, but the free version takes one account. The Mac App Store listing says "New Users can try Airmail without Multi Account, and limited capabilities." In the US store, Airmail Pro is $7.99 a month or $49.99 a year. Ai Composer is a separate purchase, listed at $4.99 and at $14.99 for "Ai Composer Monthly." Airmail's website lists no prices (Airmail).

Airmail's help center lists what Pro adds: push notifications, multiple accounts, Send Later, snooze, custom and swipe actions, per-account signatures, iCloud sync and Smart Folders (Airmail help). That page shows lower prices ($5.99 a month, $29.99 a year) than another help page and the App Store, so check the App Store in your country before you buy.

Alrighty has a 14-day trial with no card, then a Free plan or Pro. Every account you add goes into one inbox on either plan. The Free plan has a small monthly AI allowance and no sorting into groups. Pro has both.

Which accounts can each app add?

Airmail takes more. Its App Store listing names "Exchange, iCloud, Gmail, IMAP, POP3, Google Apps, Yahoo!, AOL, Outlook.com, Live.com," plus local accounts. Its unified inbox lets you "See all of the email in all of your inboxes at once," and you can leave an account out of that view.

Alrighty takes three providers: iCloud with an app-specific password, Gmail with Sign in with Google or an app password, and Outlook.com, Hotmail, Live or Microsoft 365 with Sign in with Microsoft. It can't add Yahoo, AOL, Fastmail or other IMAP accounts. If you need one of those, Airmail is the better fit.

Can Claude or ChatGPT work in Airmail and in Alrighty?

Yes, in both, through MCP. This is where the two apps are closest, and the setup differs.

Airmail. Version 26.0.20 added: "Airmail now connects to AI assistants like Claude, Codex, and other compatible chatbots." The release note says the Airmail MCP is a separate download from npm, that you need a compatible AI assistant, and that you approve each assistant's connection. Airmail's listing doesn't say whether the assistant can send mail on its own. Separately, Airmail's composer uses Apple's "system Writing Tools," and Ai Composer is a paid add-on.

Alrighty. The MCP server is built into the app, with nothing else to install. It's off until you turn it on with Connect AI, and then Claude (the desktop app or Claude Code), ChatGPT's desktop app, Codex, Cursor, VS Code, OpenCode, Antigravity or a local model can read and search all your accounts (setup). The AI can also work in an agent window you watch: open mail, write replies, file messages. Nothing sends until you click Send, because an email can carry instructions aimed at the AI.

Alrighty also has AI of its own. When you're signed in, opening a reply starts a suggested draft in your voice, written from what you sent that person before. Clean up sorts your senders in the background. Both send the emails they read through Alrighty's server to OpenAI and other model companies. Signed out, nothing goes to Alrighty's server. For a wider look at this, see the best email MCP servers.

Which app keeps your mail on your device?

Both keep most of the work on your device, with different exceptions.

Airmail's privacy policy, updated October 3, 2026, says "Airmail primarily processes mailbox content on your device." For Send Later and Snooze on Gmail, Outlook, Office 365, IMAP and Exchange accounts, "we store credentials solely to send the message at specified time," and removes them afterward. Optional cloud features run on "Google Cloud Platform infrastructure." The website offers a privacy mode that you turn on: "you can enable privacy mode which will process all the data locally on your device," and it "blocks tracking pixels, and prevents images from loading automatically."

Alrighty keeps its copy of your mail and its search index on your computer, and your passwords and sign-in tokens stay on your computer, encrypted with a key from your system's keychain. No Alrighty server holds them. The exceptions are the AI features above, and Clean up, which sends each sender's address and up to 3 of their newest emails to Alrighty's server to sort. Images load automatically, through a proxy with no cookies, so the sender never sees your computer's address. There's no setting to block images, and a tracking pixel still shows the mail was opened. Usage and crash data go to Alrighty by default, never mail content, and Share usage data in Settings turns that off.

How do they handle newsletters?

Airmail moves them out of view. Its website says the smart inbox "automatically filters out newsletters and other distractions, leaving you with just the crucial messages." Airmail's site doesn't describe an unsubscribe or block tool.

Alrighty ends them. Stop mail unsubscribes every way the message offers (one-click, an email to the list, or the list's web page), archives the sender's mail, and moves new mail from them 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 lists the senders you likely don't want, such as scams, cold outreach and newsletters you never open, so you can stop them together. Filters catch a kind of mail that comes from a new sender each time, like cold sales. A sure phishing message goes to Junk, and a likely one stays with a warning.

Alrighty doesn't screen first-time senders. A new sender's first email reaches your Inbox, and stopped mail goes to Archive, not Junk.

How do they search?

Airmail's site focuses on Siri and Shortcuts: you can "ask Siri to send or search mail" and use Airmail actions "as building blocks in the Shortcuts app." It doesn't describe how its own search matches what you type.

Alrighty's search runs on your computer and matches meaning as well as words, so "when is my flight" finds the airline's confirmation even when the email never says "flight." One search covers every account. You can also ask a question and get the answer with the emails it came from; that answer goes through Alrighty's server to OpenAI. The search model is about 350 MB and downloads on first launch.

What does Airmail do better than Alrighty?

• Every Apple device. Airmail runs on iPhone, iPad and Vision Pro as well as the Mac. Alrighty has no iPhone or iPad app.
• More accounts. Yahoo, AOL, POP3 and any IMAP server work in Airmail.
• Customizing. Custom and swipe actions, Smart Folders, Siri and Shortcuts.
• Mac requirements. Airmail's listing asks for macOS 14.6 or later and names no chip. On a Mac, Alrighty needs Apple silicon.
• A long track record. Alrighty is new.

If you're leaving Airmail for other reasons, our Airmail alternatives page compares more apps.

Which should you pick?

• Your accounts are iCloud, Gmail and Outlook, and you want them in one inbox without paying per account: Alrighty.
• You want newsletters and cold email stopped, not just hidden: Alrighty.
• You want Claude or ChatGPT working in your mail with nothing extra to install: Alrighty.
• You want the same app on your iPhone and iPad: Airmail.
• You have Yahoo, AOL or POP accounts: Airmail.
• You like to customize swipes, actions and Shortcuts: Airmail.

See all of Alrighty on the features page, or browse more comparisons.

Questions

Can I use more than one account in Airmail for free?

Not as a new user. Airmail's App Store listing says new users "can try Airmail without Multi Account," and its help center lists multiple accounts as a Pro feature. Alrighty puts every iCloud, Gmail and Outlook account you add in one inbox on the Free plan too.

Does Alrighty have an iPhone app like Airmail?

No. Alrighty runs on Mac, Windows and Linux, and has no phone app. Your mail stays with iCloud, Google or Microsoft, so you can read it on your iPhone in Apple Mail or another app, and what you archive in Alrighty shows as archived there.

Is Airmail's MCP the same as Alrighty's?

Both use MCP, so the same assistants can connect. Airmail's is a separate download from npm. Alrighty's is built in and adds an agent window you watch, where nothing sends until you click Send.

Will my Airmail settings move to Alrighty?

No. Airmail's swipe actions, Smart Folders and other settings stay in Airmail. Your mail and folders live with your provider, so they appear in Alrighty once you add the account and it syncs.