What MailVault is, which email providers it works with, what it runs on, and how it keeps your mail private.
MailVault is a free desktop email client for macOS, Windows and Linux that stores your emails in a vault on your own disk. It connects to your email accounts via IMAP and saves all messages as standard .eml files (RFC 5322) in Maildir format on your computer, giving you a permanent offline backup with no vendor lock-in.
MailVault works with any email provider that supports IMAP, including Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo Mail, iCloud Mail, ProtonMail (with Bridge), Fastmail, Zoho Mail, and any self-hosted or business email provider with IMAP access.
On macOS, MailVault requires macOS 11 (Big Sur) or later and runs natively on both Intel and Apple Silicon. On Windows it requires Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit) and installs from a signed installer. On Linux it ships as a .deb for Ubuntu 22.04+ / Debian 12+ and on the Snap Store. It stays in the menu bar and keeps syncing with the window closed.
Yes. Settings › Appearance › Highlighting offers two ways for the message list to show where you are. Follow the pointer is the default and works the way MailVault always has: a row lights up as the mouse passes over it, and the message you opened carries a tinted band. Mark what I’m reading turns that around: the pointer changes nothing, the open message is filled with a solid grey, and the other messages of the same conversation take a lighter grey, so a glance tells you both what you are reading and what it belongs to. Either option applies to every account and folder, and you can switch between them at any time.
Yes, in Settings › Appearance. It has four sections: Colors, Layout, Reading and Date & time. Every choice applies to all accounts and folders and can be changed at any time.
Colors holds light or dark mode and the colour palette — Indigo, a cool ink with indigo accents, or Graphite, warm neutrals with a soft violet accent. Email content has its own theme setting beside it, so you can keep a dark app and still read messages on white.
Layout is where the workspace is shaped: the mail view (a message list, or the chat-style conversation view), the reading pane beside the list or below it, message rows on two lines or a single line, the sidebar stacked / split / as an account switcher, its density comfortable or compact, and whether an account’s backup badge sits on the avatar, at the end of the row, or is hidden.
Reading covers conversations — Grouped collapses replies into one row, Expandable unfolds them in the list, Off gives every message its own row — along with thread order, signature handling, row highlighting and action-button style.
MailVault is designed with privacy first. Your email credentials are stored in the macOS Keychain, the Windows Credential Manager or the Linux Secret Service, never in a plain file. All data stays on your machine — there is no cloud sync, no tracking, no analytics, and no data mining. The source is live on GitHub so you can read the code yourself.
Open Contacts in the sidebar. It builds contact cards from your mail and the people you add, with correspondence history, suggestions and a review queue for discovered addresses. Merge duplicates after reviewing the preview, undo a merge, and import or export vCard files. Contacts stay on this computer and are included in vault backups and account transfers; they do not sync with your provider’s address book.
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