All your email.
Explained.
A native mail client for people who live in their inbox. Every account in one place, search that says what it covered, and an inbox that tells you why each message is where it is.
The main window, dark theme, at 2× (2880×1800 or wider, 16:10). Three panes: sidebar with two accounts and a smart folder, the Inbox in Smart view showing the People / Notifications / Newsletters groups, and a conversation open in the reading pane. Use realistic but fictional names. Crop to the window only, no desktop. Export a light-theme version too if you want to swap it by theme.
Every account, one inbox.
Google, iCloud, Yahoo and any IMAP account side by side, merged or one at a time.
It tells you why.
Sorting, searches and rules all explain themselves.
Your mail, on your Mac.
Stored locally, so it works offline.
Quick to open.
Under half a second, even with every account open.
Works with
- iCloud
- Yahoo!
- IMAP
Built for a busy inbox.
Hundreds of messages a day, across every account, without losing track of any.
An app that shows its working.
Why a message is where it is. What a search covered. What a rule will do. Where a sent email has got to. Relay answers as you go.
- Smart view sorts mail into People, Notifications and Newsletters, and shows why each message landed where it did.
- Searches say how much of your mail they covered.
- See each email you send go from waiting to sent.
Search that finds it.
Filter by sender, recipient, subject, date, folder or flag in one line, and see each term as you type it. Searched on your Mac, so it's fast and works offline.
- OR, brackets and - to exclude, the way Gmail does it.
- Search the rest: one click also checks older mail that isn't on your Mac.
- Smart folders: save a search and it stays up to date as mail arrives.
Conversations that don't get mixed up.
Replies are linked by the email itself, never by matching subjects, so two unrelated "Invoice" emails stay apart. Forwards, side-replies and people added or dropped are marked where they happened.
- One row per conversation.
- Quoted history folds away until you need it.
Rules that do the work.
Match on sender, recipients, subject, body, folder or flags, combined any way you like. Then archive, move, mark, pin or add to a collection, automatically as mail arrives or whenever you choose.
- Preview a rule before saving: see what it matches and why.
- Turn any search into a rule.
- New mail only. Your existing inbox is never changed by surprise.
Write it like a document.
Tables, images, fonts and colours, and formatting kept when you paste. Drag files in to attach them. A signature for each account, edited right in the message, and drafts saved as you type.
- Paste or drop images straight into the text, and resize them by dragging.
- ⇧ ⌘ V pastes as plain text when you'd rather not keep the formatting.
- Find and replace, and spelling checked as you type.
And the essentials.
Every account, one list
Google, iCloud, Yahoo and any IMAP server. See every inbox merged and colour-coded, or one account at a time.
Works offline
Choose how much mail to keep on your Mac: 12 months by default, or everything. Sends wait in the Outbox and go when you're back online.
Designed mail, shown safely
Newsletters and receipts keep their layout. Nothing in them can run. Dark mode adapts their colours, or shows the originals.
Collections
Hand-picked groups of emails from any account, like "Receipts" or "Project X". They stay together even when mail is moved.
Undo
⌘ Z undoes archive, move, delete, read and pin, and rules you run by hand, on the server too.
Attachments
Files are listed under each message. Click one to open it, save it, or save them all at once. Drag files into a reply to attach them.
Export
Any message to HTML, Markdown or the original .eml, with its attachments.
Themes
Light, dark, or your own. Share a theme as a file.
Command line
Search, rules and every action in the app also run from the terminal, for scripts and automation.
Your accounts on every Mac
Optional. Sign in to Relay with Google or an email, and your accounts are ready on your other Macs, with no passwords to type again. Free during the alpha.
Wide crop (2520×1080) of the reading pane showing a designed newsletter or receipt rendered in dark mode with colours adapted, next to the same email in light mode. Shows that layout survives and nothing looks broken. A short muted MP4/WebM loop toggling the theme works well here too.
In progress
Not shipped yet- Windows and LinuxThe same app on every desktop.
- Settings everywhere, and Relay in a browserYour settings follow your Relay account to every device, and your mail is a sign-in away in any browser.
- MobileiOS and Android, with the same rules and views.
- AssistantAsk questions about your mail. It shows what it searched and asks before it sends anything.
- Works with AI toolsLet tools like Claude triage and reply for you, with the same actions as the app.
What we won't compromise on.
- 01
Your mail, on your machine.
Everything is stored locally, so reading, searching and writing work offline.
- 02
Familiar first.
A standard three-pane layout you already know. Smart view, rules and search operators are there when you want them and out of the way when you don't.
- 03
Secure by default.
Protection that doesn't need configuring.
- Passwords and sign-ins are kept in your Mac's keychain, never in a file.
- With a Relay account, the sign-ins it keeps for your other Macs are encrypted. Deleting the account deletes them at once.
- Email can't run code. Every message is cleaned before it's shown.
- Tracking pixels are never downloaded, and images load without cookies, so senders learn less about when you read.
- Images in Junk don't load until you ask.
Questions.
Which email providers work?
Google (Gmail and Google Workspace), iCloud, Yahoo, and any other provider that offers IMAP. Outlook.com, Microsoft 365 and Exchange are coming: they need Microsoft sign-in, which isn't finished. iCloud and Yahoo sign in with an app password, which you create in your account's security settings.
Which platforms?
macOS today. Windows and Linux are next, then iOS and Android.
Where is my mail stored?
With your email provider, as now, and on your Mac so it works offline. Passwords and sign-ins go in your Mac's keychain. If you use a Relay account, it also keeps your accounts' sign-ins, encrypted, so they're ready on your other Macs. Your mail itself is never stored on our servers.
Do I need a Relay account?
No. Relay works fully without one, and nothing leaves your Mac unless you sign in. With one, sign in on another Mac and your accounts are already there. You can stop at any time in Settings, which deletes your Relay account and everything it held.
Can senders tell when I've opened their email?
Mostly not. Relay never downloads tracking pixels, and loads images without cookies, which stops most open-tracking. A sender can still see that an ordinary image in their email was loaded. To stop that too, set Remote images to "Ask first" in Settings, under Behaviour. Images in Junk never load until you ask.
Does it use AI on my mail?
No. Smart view sorts mail with fixed rules it can explain, not a model. A planned assistant will show what it searched and ask before it sends anything.
How much does it cost?
Price to be decided.
Can I leave?
Your mail never leaves your provider, so any other client still sees all of it. You can also export any message as HTML, Markdown or the original .eml.
Will updates change my data?
This is early access. Until 1.0, an update may reset some settings. Your mail is never affected.
Get Relay.
For macOS. Windows and Linux are coming.
Previous releases
Verify downloads with each release's SHA256SUMS. Older builds are kept for rollback; they get no fixes.