Privacy policy

What MailTrove reads

MailTrove reads the archive files you open (PST, OST, MBOX, EML, MSG, OLM and others). It only reads them; it never changes, moves or uploads them.

MailTrove doesn't look through your folders for mail: it reads only the files and folders you open.

What MailTrove keeps on your computer

• Settings: your preferences, the list of recently opened archives and your recent searches, in MailTrove's settings file. On the Mac, the recent list also holds the permission the Mac gave MailTrove to reopen each file.
• Search indexes: to sort and search quickly, MailTrove builds an index for each archive you open. It contains copies of your emails' text and of text from their attachments. With Ask Your Messages on, it also holds passages of attached documents for Ask, including text read from scans and pictures by your computer's own text recognition (Windows' or macOS' built-in recognizer; nothing is sent to read them). It stays on your computer, in MailTrove's app data folder, and you can delete it at any time (Settings > Storage). Indexes not used for 60 days are deleted automatically.
• Temporary copies of attachments you open, deleted the next time MailTrove starts.
• Your MailTrove sign-in (only if you have one): the email address if you signed in with one, a signed proof of your purchase, and a sign-in token. The token is kept in Windows Credential Manager or the Mac's Keychain.
• AI summaries you made (full version), saved with the archive's search index and deleted with it.
• Ask Your Messages (full version, only for archives you turn it on for): a search model (EmbeddingGemma, about 207 MB, downloaded once from Hugging Face when you first turn Ask on), an index of each such archive's emails built on your computer, beside its search index, and the questions you asked with their answers. Settings > AI resets the indexes and clears the questions.

None of your email is sent to us or to anyone else, except the emails you choose to summarize or ask about (below).

Where this data lives, and how to remove it:

• Windows, from the Microsoft Store: in MailTrove's own app data folder, which uninstalling MailTrove deletes. The sign-in token is the exception: it stays in Windows Credential Manager until you sign out (Settings > Full Version) or remove it there.
• Mac, from the Mac App Store: in MailTrove's own container, ~/Library/Containers/com.getmailtrove.mailtrove. The Mac doesn't delete an app's container when the app is moved to the Trash; delete that folder to remove everything, or use Settings > Storage first. The sign-in token stays in your Keychain until you sign out or delete it in Keychain Access.

What MailTrove sends over the internet

MailTrove makes network requests only in these cases:

• Remote images: emails can contain pictures stored on the sender's server. MailTrove blocks them unless you choose to load them for an email or a sender. Loading them contacts the sender's server, which can then tell that the email was opened.
• Links you click in an email open in your web browser (email addresses, in your email program).
• Prices: on Windows, the Full Version window reads the current price from the Microsoft Store, or from getmailtrove.com when the Store doesn't give one. On the Mac, prices come from the App Store.
• Signing in with your email: MailTrove sends the email address you type and the app's display language to our license server (license.getmailtrove.com), which emails you a sign-in code in that language (adding an email address on the Mac works the same way). To finish signing in, it sends the code, an identifier for this computer, the version of Windows or macOS, where MailTrove was installed from (the Microsoft Store, the Mac App Store or our website), and the processor type. The computer identifier is a one-way scramble of the computer's own identifier (Windows' machine identifier, or the Mac's hardware identifier): it tells two computers apart and can't be turned back into the original.
• Purchases in the Mac App Store: when you buy the full version or AI credits, or restore a purchase, MailTrove sends our license server the purchase record the App Store signed (below), with the same computer details, so the purchase can be added to your account.
• Purchases in the Microsoft Store: in MailTrove from the Microsoft Store, when you buy the full version or AI credits there, and each time MailTrove starts while it has a full version bought there, MailTrove asks our license server for a short-lived ticket. It gives the ticket and the computer identifier to the Microsoft Store, which returns a key for the Microsoft account signed in to the Microsoft Store on this computer. MailTrove sends that key to our license server with the same computer details (and, for AI credits, the sign-in token), and the server uses it to ask Microsoft which MailTrove purchases that account has (below). Windows itself tells MailTrove whether you own the full version.
• Checking your purchase: while you're signed in, each time MailTrove starts it sends the sign-in token, the computer identifier and the same computer details, so that a refund, an email change or signing out elsewhere reaches this computer; "Check again" in Settings does the same. If there's no connection MailTrove carries on as before.
• Receipts (Windows, Settings > Full Version, for a purchase on getmailtrove.com) sends the sign-in token to our license server, which asks Paddle for a link to your receipts page. Microsoft Store purchases are in your Microsoft account's order history; on the Mac, your purchases are in your Apple Account.
• Signing out sends the sign-in token, so the server forgets this computer.
• AI Summary (full version, only when you ask for one): after showing you what it will cost and asking you to confirm, MailTrove sends the emails of that conversation (who sent them, to whom, when, the subject, the text without quoted earlier replies, and attachment names) with your sign-in token and the app's display language to our license server, which passes them to Google's Gemini model on Google Cloud Vertex AI and streams the summary back. Neither our server nor Google keeps the emails or the summary, and Google doesn't use them to train its models. Our server records only how many AI credits the account used, how many characters were sent and how many tokens the model used, never their content.
• Ask Your Messages (full version, only when you ask a question): MailTrove finds the emails that could answer it on your computer, then sends the question, those emails' excerpts (who sent them, to whom, when, the subject and the text without quoted earlier replies), passages of attached documents found for it (from at most four documents, with each file's name and page numbers; text recognized from a scan or picture is marked as such), and your last few questions and answers in that session, with your sign-in token and the app's display language, to our license server, which passes them to Google's Gemini model on Google Cloud Vertex AI and streams the answer back. As with summaries, neither keeps them, and our server records only counts.
• The search model for Ask: turning Ask on for the first time downloads it from Hugging Face (huggingface.co), which sees your IP address as any web download does. Nothing about your email is sent to do this.
• Your AI credit balance (Settings > AI, the Summarize dialog and the Ask pane) sends the sign-in token to our license server.

MailTrove has no analytics, no tracking, no crash reporting and no advertising.

Buying the full version and AI credits

On getmailtrove.com, the full version and AI credits are sold by Paddle, our reseller and merchant of record: Paddle takes the payment and handles your billing details under its own privacy notice (https://www.paddle.com/legal/privacy). We receive from Paddle the email address you bought with and a record of the purchase, never your card details.

In the Mac App Store, Apple sells the full version and AI credits and takes the payment under its own privacy policy (https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/). Apple doesn't give us your name, your email address or your payment details. What we receive is the purchase record the App Store signs: which item was bought, when, in which country's store, its transaction identifiers, and whether it was refunded. Apple also tells our server directly when a purchase is refunded.

In the Microsoft Store, Microsoft sells the full version and AI credits and takes the payment under its own privacy statement (https://www.microsoft.com/privacy/privacystatement). Microsoft doesn't give us your name, your email address or your payment details. What we receive, when MailTrove asks with the key described above, is a record of each MailTrove item that Microsoft account has bought: which item, its identifiers and the purchase's transaction identifier, its dates, and whether it's still active or was refunded. MailTrove asks again each time it starts, which is how a refund reaches us.

You don't need an email address to buy in the Microsoft Store either. MailTrove creates an account for the full version identified by the Microsoft Store's identifier for your ownership of it, the same on every PC you use with that Microsoft account. AI credits bought in the Microsoft Store are added to the account this computer is signed in to. If this computer is already signed in with an email address when MailTrove first sees the purchase, the full version joins that account instead. Adding an email address (Settings > Full Version) is optional; it lets you sign in on the Mac.

You don't need an email address to buy in the Mac App Store. MailTrove creates an account for your purchases identified by the App Store's record that this copy of MailTrove came from your Apple Account, and gives Apple a random identifier for that account with each purchase, so the purchase can be matched to it. Adding an email address (Settings > Full Version) is optional; it lets you sign in on Windows and other Macs.

What our license server keeps

For each account, our license server keeps:

• the email address, if the account has one;
• for Paddle purchases: the Paddle customer and transaction identifiers;
• for App Store purchases: the App Store's transaction identifiers, the item bought, the purchase date and the store country, and the identifier of the App Store's record for your copy of MailTrove;
• for Microsoft Store purchases: the Microsoft Store's item and transaction identifiers and the item bought;
• whether each purchase was refunded or charged back, and when the account was last used;
• AI credits granted and spent (amounts and dates only), and each month's AI usage counts;
• for each computer signed in: the computer identifier, the version of Windows or macOS, where MailTrove was installed from, the processor type, and when it signed in and was last seen;
• a scrambled copy of your latest sign-in code (never the code itself), which stops working after ten minutes and is deleted within about an hour.

It runs on Cloudflare; its logs aren't kept. Sign-in codes and the purchase email are sent through Resend, which delivers them for us.

We keep this while you have a MailTrove account. You can delete your account by writing to us at the address below, or, in MailTrove from the Mac App Store, in the app (Settings > Full Version > Delete account). Deleting it removes what the server keeps about you and signs out every computer; the full version bought on getmailtrove.com and any unused AI credits on that account can no longer be used. A full-version purchase made in the Mac App Store stays with your Apple Account, and one made in the Microsoft Store with your Microsoft account: the next time MailTrove starts, it sets up a fresh account with it. So that this can't be used to collect the AI credits that come with the full version a second time, the server keeps a record of which App Store and Microsoft Store purchases have already granted credits: Apple's or Microsoft's transaction identifiers and the amounts, with no account, email or anything else about you.

Children

MailTrove isn't directed at children and doesn't knowingly collect information from them.

Changes

If this policy changes, the new version will be posted at this address with a new date.

Contact

Questions or requests about your privacy: MailTrove, hello@getmailtrove.com.