Desktop - Thunderbird
Mozilla Thunderbird is a email client, personal information manager, news client, RSS and chat client.
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Best Private Email Clients in 2026
Private alternatives to Apple Mail, Outlook, Gmail, vetted against our public criteria.
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Android - K-9 Mail
K-9 Mail is an open source email client focused on making it easy to chew through large volumes of email. Designed for both novice and power users and offers lots of features…
FairEmail
FairEmail is a fully featured, open-source email client for Android that uses standard IMAP/SMTP protocols and supports OpenPGP and S/MIME encryption. It blocks remote image tracking, confirms link opens, and stores no data on third-party servers.
Canary Mail
Canary's security suite is second to none with Seamless End-To-End Encryption, Full PGP Support, Biometric App Lock, On-Device Fetch, No Ads, No Data Mining & Open Source Mail…
GNOME Evolution
GNOME Evolution is a Linux personal information manager combining email, calendar, contacts, and tasks in one application. It uses standard protocols (IMAP, SMTP, CalDAV, CardDAV) and supports native OpenPGP and S/MIME encryption without plugins.
Kontact
Kontact is the KDE personal information management suite that combines KMail (email), KOrganizer (calendar), KAddressBook, and a feed reader into a single unified window. It runs on Linux and supports IMAP, POP3, OpenPGP, and S/MIME natively.
NeoMutt
NeoMutt is a command-line email client for Linux and macOS, forked from Mutt with a large collection of patches and added features. It supports IMAP, POP3, SMTP, OpenPGP, S/MIME, Notmuch search integration, and is highly configurable via a plain-text config file.
Apple Mail
Apple Mail is the built-in email client on macOS and iOS, supporting IMAP, SMTP, and S/MIME. Mail Privacy Protection hides the user's IP address and loads remote content via Apple proxy servers to block tracking pixels.
Browser - Mailvelope
Bring email encryption straight into your Browser. We recommend using Firefox for this. It can be used to encrypt and sign electronic messages, including attached files,…
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An email client is the app you read and write mail in, kept separate from whoever hosts your inbox. The privacy win is keeping your mail on your own device and adding the PGP encryption a web app will not. A client only inherits the privacy of the account behind it, so pair these with a private provider. Looking for the inbox itself? See the best private email providers.
What to look for in an email client
The essentials are open-source code you can inspect and OpenPGP support, either built in or through a bridge. Beyond that, look for IMAP and SMTP so the app works with any provider rather than locking you to one, and local storage that puts a copy of your mail on your machine instead of only on a server.
Why webmail alone is not enough
A provider’s web app is convenient, but it ties you to one window and usually cannot do real end-to-end PGP with people on other services. A dedicated client adds that encryption and holds a local copy of your mail, which is what saves you if an account is ever locked or closed.
How to switch
Most clients set up with your address and an app password, then pull your mail over IMAP so nothing is removed from the server. Add an OpenPGP key when you want end-to-end messages and the other side supports it. The trade-off is upkeep, because you manage keys and settings yourself where webmail just works.
Frequently asked
- Does an email client make my email private?
- Not by itself. A client is the app you read mail in, and it inherits the privacy of the account behind it. Point it at a private provider and it keeps a copy on your own device instead of only in a web app.
- Can I add encryption to an existing account?
- Yes. Clients like Thunderbird support OpenPGP, and the Mailvelope add-on brings PGP to webmail in your browser. It encrypts the message body for anyone else using PGP, though it cannot hide details like the subject line.
- Which client should I use on my phone?
- On Android, K-9 Mail and FairEmail are the open-source picks. Canary Mail covers both iPhone and Android. On a computer, Thunderbird runs everywhere, with Evolution and Kontact as Linux options.