Best MailStore Alternative for Mac — MailVault

If you have searched for email archiving software, you have probably found MailStore Home. It is one of the most popular tools for archiving emails locally on Windows. The problem is that MailStore does not run on Mac. It never has. If you are on macOS (or Linux), you need an alternative.

MailVault is a free, open-source email archiving app built specifically for macOS and Linux. It does what MailStore does — archive IMAP emails to your local disk — but it runs natively on Mac (both Intel and Apple Silicon) and Linux, stores emails in standard open formats, and costs nothing.

MailStore: What It Does Well

MailStore Home is a solid product for Windows users. To be fair about its strengths:

• Mature and well-tested — MailStore has been around since 2006. It handles edge cases well and supports a wide range of email providers.
• Full-text search — MailStore indexes archived emails for fast full-text search across your entire archive.
• Multiple source types — Beyond IMAP, MailStore can archive from Outlook PST files, Exchange servers, and other local email clients.
• Enterprise version — MailStore Server is designed for organizations that need centralized email archiving with compliance features, audit trails, and retention policies.

For Windows users in enterprise environments, MailStore Server is hard to beat. But for personal use on a Mac, it is not an option at all.

MailStore vs MailVault: Side-by-Side

Where MailVault Wins

It runs on Mac. This is the most obvious difference. If you use macOS, MailStore is not an option. MailVault runs natively on macOS (Intel and Apple Silicon) and Linux. There is no Wine, no virtual machine, no workaround required.

Open standard storage. MailStore keeps your archived emails in a proprietary database format. If MailStore stops being developed, accessing those emails becomes difficult. MailVault stores every email as a standard .eml file — RFC 5322 format that any email client can open. Your archive is just a folder of files. You can open them in Apple Mail, Thunderbird, or any text editor.

Open source. MailVault's source code is on GitHub. You can inspect it, audit it, modify it, or contribute to it. For something that handles your personal emails, knowing exactly what the software does matters.

It is also an email client. MailStore is purely an archiving tool — you archive emails, then use a separate client to read them. MailVault is both: you can read, search, compose, reply, and forward emails directly in the app, and archive them to your local disk when you want to keep them permanently.

Background caching. MailVault can automatically download email content in the background as you browse, progressively building a local archive without manual intervention. MailStore requires you to explicitly run archive jobs.

Where MailStore Wins

Being honest about the differences:

• Full-text search indexing — MailStore builds a full-text index of all archived emails for instant search across large archives. MailVault's search uses IMAP server-side search for online queries and file-based access for local emails, which is less sophisticated for very large archives.
• PST and Exchange import — If you have Outlook PST files or need to archive from an Exchange server directly (not via IMAP), MailStore supports these sources. MailVault works with IMAP only.
• Enterprise compliance — MailStore Server (the paid edition) offers centralized archiving, retention policies, audit trails, and legal hold features that organizations need for compliance. MailVault is designed for personal and small business use, not enterprise compliance.
• Maturity — MailStore has been around for nearly 20 years. It has handled more edge cases, more email providers, and more user scenarios than MailVault has seen yet.

Who Should Use MailVault Instead?

MailVault is the right choice if:

• You use macOS or Linux and need local email archiving.
• You want your archived emails in standard, open formats (not a proprietary database).
• You prefer free, open-source software that you can inspect and trust.
• You want an app that is both an email client and an archiver — read, send, and archive in one place.
• You are a freelancer, consultant, or small business owner who needs a personal email archive without enterprise complexity.
• You want to free up email storage by archiving locally and deleting from the server.

If you need enterprise compliance features, Exchange integration, or PST import, MailStore Server is the better tool. But for personal email archiving on a Mac, MailVault does the job well — and it is free.

Other Alternatives

For completeness, here are other options Mac users sometimes consider:

• Apple Mail + local folders — You can drag emails to local mailbox folders in Apple Mail, but there is no bulk archive workflow, no Maildir export, and searching local folders is slow for large volumes.
• Thunderbird — Free and cross-platform, but Thunderbird is an email client, not an archiver. It does not have a dedicated local archive workflow. Its local storage uses mbox format, which is less resilient than Maildir.
• Google Takeout / provider export — One-time bulk export to .mbox files. Not searchable, not incremental, and .mbox is a single-file format prone to corruption at scale.

MailVault fills the gap: a dedicated email archiving app for Mac and Linux, with open formats and no cost.

Learn more about how local IMAP archiving works, or see all MailVault features. Have questions? Check the FAQ.