Privacy & Terms

The policies for the Mailwell app and this website. Mailwell is made and sold by Luke Southwell-Chan, an independent developer (“the developer”). Last updated October 27, 2026.

• Privacy Policy
• License Terms

Privacy Policy

Your mail never touches a Mailwell server. The app on your Mac connects directly to your email providers. Your messages, contacts, and credentials never pass through, and are never stored on, any infrastructure run for Mailwell. There's exactly one small service, to keep track of free trials (see below).

What stays on your Mac

• All mail data (messages, attachments and the search index) is stored locally on your Mac.
• Account credentials and OAuth tokens are stored in the macOS Keychain.
• The app contains no analytics, telemetry, or crash reporting. How you use the app isn't visible to the developer.
• Remote images in messages are blocked by default, which also blocks read-tracking pixels.
• If you let Mailwell use macOS Contacts, it reads them on your Mac to show people's photos. They aren't sent anywhere.

Network connections the app makes

• Your email providers: direct IMAP/SMTP, Microsoft Graph, or JMAP connections, all over TLS. This is the app's job. Microsoft accounts sign in on Microsoft's own page.
• Account setup: when you add an address at a domain Mailwell doesn't already know, it looks up that domain's mail settings in Mozilla's public directory (autoconfig.thunderbird.net) and on the domain's own server. Only the domain is sent, never your address or password.
• Polar (which sells Mailwell as merchant of record): license activation and periodic checks send only your license key and your Mac's name (so you can tell your Macs apart when managing them), never your mail or email address. Purchases themselves happen on Polar under Polar's privacy policy.
• Mailwell license service (trial.mailwell.app, run by the developer on Cloudflare): with a license, the app sends only your license key so the service can ask Polar how long your updates run, and to start a renewal checkout. The service keeps nothing from Polar's answer except the resulting date, cached for up to an hour under a one-way hash of the key.
• Mailwell trial service (the same address): while you have no license, the app sends a one-way hash of your Mac's hardware ID so a reinstall doesn't restart the free trial. The service stores only that hash and the date it first saw it. It can't be turned back into the hardware ID, and it isn't linked to your name, email address, or mail.
• Feedbackland (the public feedback board): if you choose Help → Send Feedback…, the note you write goes to the board, anonymously, with your Mailwell and macOS versions unless you turn that off. Nothing is sent unless you press Send. Posts on the board are public.
• GitHub: the app checks a public GitHub release feed for signed updates. A standard download request; no account data is sent.
• Sender photos (on by default): Mailwell asks Gravatar for a photo using a hash of the sender's address, and asks Google's and DuckDuckGo's icon services for the logo of the sender's domain. It never does this for addresses at big free mail services, and never sends your own address. Turn off Look up sender photos online in Settings → General and these requests stop.
• AI (optional, off by default): when you turn AI on, Mailwell uses Apple Intelligence on your Mac where it's available, and nothing leaves your Mac. Otherwise it uses your own API key with the provider you chose (Anthropic, OpenAI, or any compatible server, including local ones). Summarize sends that conversation and Improve writing sends that draft, only when you press them. If you write rules in plain words, new inbox mail is checked against them by sending each message's sender, subject and preview line, never the full message.
• AI assistants (optional, off by default): if you turn on access for Claude or another assistant, that app can read your mail through Mailwell, read-only. What the assistant does with it falls under that assistant's own terms.
• Alias services (optional): if you add a SimpleLogin or addy.io API key, alias actions you trigger call that service's API.

As in any mail app, loading a message's images, opening its links or using one-click unsubscribe contacts the sender's servers. Apart from that, that's the complete list. No other third parties receive anything.

This website

mailwell.app uses no cookies and no analytics. It's hosted on Cloudflare, which keeps standard server logs. The Buy button loads Polar's checkout from jsDelivr. Links to Fastmail marked as referral links pay the developer a fee if you sign up through them; clicking one goes through PartnerStack, which runs Fastmail's partner program, under its own privacy policy.

Security measures

• Every release is Developer ID-signed and notarized by Apple, and updates are verified with an additional cryptographic signature before installing.
• Mail sync, sign-in, license checks and updates all use TLS encryption.
• Message HTML is rendered in an isolated WebKit process, separate from the rest of the app.

Support correspondence

Email sent to [email protected] is used solely to respond to your inquiry and is never shared or sold.

Your data and your rights

Luke Southwell-Chan is responsible for the little personal data Mailwell handles (the “controller” under the GDPR and UK GDPR). Contact: [email protected].

• What's held, and why: the trial hash and its date, to keep the free trial to one per Mac (legitimate interest), kept while the trial service runs. If you buy, Polar shares your name, email address and order so your license can be supported (contract), kept while you're a customer and as long as tax rules require. Support email, to answer you (contract or legitimate interest), kept until it's resolved.
• Who helps: Polar (payments), Cloudflare (this website and the trial service), Feedbackland (the feedback board), and the email provider for [email protected]. Some are in the US and protect transfers with standard contractual clauses or the EU–US Data Privacy Framework.
• Nothing else: no data is sold or shared for advertising, and no decisions about you are made automatically. Mailwell isn't meant for children under 13.
• Your rights: you can ask to see, correct, delete or export your data, or object to how it's used, by emailing [email protected]. You can also complain to your local data protection authority.

License Terms

Your license

• A Mailwell license is for one person and covers all of their email accounts on up to 3 Macs they personally use.
• Don't share or resell your key. Keys that are shared publicly or resold may be disabled.
• Mailwell is licensed to you, not sold. Don't copy, modify, resell or reverse engineer it, except where the law allows.
• Licenses and renewals are billed by Polar, the merchant of record, which processes payment and collects any applicable taxes.
• A Mailwell license is a one-time payment. It includes the versions of Mailwell released during the year after purchase, and you may keep using any of them for as long as you like.
• A renewal adds a year of updates, from the end of your current year, or from the day you renew if your updates have already ended. You can renew once, or yearly until you cancel; automatic renewal is charged each year on its date. Cancelling stops future charges and keeps the year already paid for.
• A Founder license is a one-time payment that includes every version of Mailwell for the Mac released for as long as the developer continues to make Mailwell. It isn't a promise about other apps or platforms, and it isn't a promise that Mailwell will be made for any fixed period. Founder licenses are offered only to the first 50 buyers, until December 31, 2026.

Trial and cancellation

• Mailwell is free to use for 14 days from first launch, with no payment details required. After the trial, a license is needed to keep using the app.
• The free trial is there so you can make sure Mailwell works for you before you buy. Licenses, renewals and Founder licenses are non-refundable once purchased, except where the law requires it.
• You may cancel automatic renewal at any time from your Polar account.

The fine print

• Mailwell is provided as is and as available, without warranties of any kind, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. It isn't guaranteed to be error-free or uninterrupted.
• To the maximum extent permitted by law, the developer isn't liable for indirect or consequential losses, including lost mail, data or profits, and total liability is limited to the amount you paid in the 12 months before a claim.
• Your mail lives with your email provider. Mailwell isn't a backup, so keep your own backups of anything important.
• You're responsible for what you send with Mailwell, and for what you choose to let AI providers or assistants access.
• The developer may change or stop offering the app, a feature or the trial service. Licenses, renewals and Founder licenses aren't refunded, in whole or in part, if Mailwell is discontinued. If that happens, the developer will try to release a final version that works without a license check, so copies already in use keep working. This is a good-faith intention, not a guarantee.
• Any claim is brought individually, not as part of a class or representative action.
• These terms are governed by the laws of California, and disputes are heard in the state or federal courts in San Diego County, unless your local consumer law gives you the right to bring a claim where you live.
• You are responsible for complying with your email providers' terms of service.
• These terms may be updated as the app evolves; material changes will be noted in release notes. Continued use after a change constitutes acceptance.
• Nothing here limits rights you have under consumer law that can't be waived. If any part of these terms can't be enforced, the rest still applies.