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Mailpile

Privacy-focused, searchable email client

Mail Servers ★ 8.8k stars Medium setup AGPL-3.0

Mailpile is a free email client that emphasizes privacy, fast search, and built-in encryption. It runs as a personal web application that you host yourself.

Official siteSource code

Key features

  • Fast local email search
  • Built-in PGP encryption
  • Privacy-respecting design
  • Self-hosted personal webmail

Pros & cons

Strengths

  • Released under the AGPL-3.0 license
  • Mature project with 8.8k GitHub stars
  • Written in Python
  • Lightweight — runs in 512 MB RAM

Trade-offs

  • Development has slowed
  • Single-user focus

Is Mailpile secure?

OSV.dev lists 1 published advisory for Mailpile. It doesn't publish GitHub releases we can match, so we can't say which of them apply to the current version. No known vulnerabilities is not proof of security: it means none have been publicly catalogued.

  • Most recent fixed advisory CVE-2018-20954, published 2019-08-08 (2624 days ago)

Source: OSV.dev, checked 2026-10-14. How this is measured.

Mailpile replaces

Self-hosted Gmail alternatives

Health badge

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SelfHostIndex: 29 · at risk

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[![SelfHostIndex health score for Mailpile](https://selfhostindex.com/badge/email-mailpile.svg)](https://selfhostindex.com/app/email-mailpile/)
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   :alt: SelfHostIndex health score for Mailpile
   :target: https://selfhostindex.com/app/email-mailpile/

The score is recomputed on every nightly rebuild from public repository data — see how it is calculated.

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