macOS · Testing With Friends & Family
Kirby
A Mac mail client with no server of mine in the middle.
Kirby is a native email app for the Mac. Your mail goes from your provider to your computer and nowhere else — I don't run a server, there's no relay, and nothing passes through anyone but you and the people you write to.
Gmail, iCloud, Outlook, Yahoo, Fastmail, or any plain IMAP account. Several at once if you like.
Privacy On By Default
Tracking pixels are blocked before they load. Remote images are off until you say otherwise. Every protection ships turned on; you opt out, never in.
Made For Reading And Writing
Rich replies that quote properly, a reading pane that renders real HTML mail without letting it run anything, scheduled sends, and sound packs that tell you something arrived without making you look.
Piles
Drag mail into a pile you invent — Receipts, Kid's School, That Project — and Kirby learns from where you put things. It's sorting that watches you instead of the other way around.
AI That Stays Optional
Summaries of long threads are there if you want them, routed through a proxy that keeps no copy. Off unless you turn it on.
How It Treats Your Data
The one design rule: there must be nothing for me to have. Kirby keeps your mail in a database on your Mac, talks straight to your provider, and that's the whole system.
Price
Free to read your mail. A few extras — like AI summaries — will be a small optional purchase.
Questions
Does it support Gmail?
Yes — it signs in with Google directly, and also handles iCloud, Outlook, Yahoo, Fastmail and any IMAP server.
Is my mail stored anywhere else?
No. Only on your Mac, in Kirby's own database. Removing an account from Kirby removes its mail from that database.
Why 'Kirby'?
Named after my dog. There's a face in the icon that Peggie drew.