Email backup tool privacy ratings
Tools that back up, migrate or sync mailboxes over IMAP.
10 email backup tools are rated against 4 public criteria, and 10 have enough evidence for a letter grade. Of the 3 with a known jurisdiction, 2 are based in a Five Eyes country, and 3 in the wider Fourteen Eyes.
Open-source email backup tools only · Criteria for this category · Suggest an addition · Markdown
| Name | Grade | Score | Data | Jurisdiction | Open source | No trackers or telemetry | No ads or data sales | Independent audit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Built-in mailbox backup and export for Forward Email accounts. Mailboxes are backed up as encrypted SQLite files, optionally to the user's own S3-compatible storage, and can be downloaded as encrypted SQLite or password-protected EML or MBOX archives with contacts and calendars. |
Grade B | 85 | 100% | United States Five Eyes | Yes | Partial | Yes | Yes |
Command-line mail retriever that downloads mail from POP3 and IMAP accounts into local Maildir or mbox files, or passes it to a delivery program. It is the Python 3 fork of getmail. |
Grade B | 80 | 100% | – | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Command-line tool that backs up and restores Gmail and Google Workspace mailboxes through the Gmail API, saving messages as local files with an index. |
Grade B | 80 | 100% | – | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Command-line Ruby tool that backs up IMAP accounts to local files, with incremental updates, and can restore or migrate the backups to another IMAP server. |
Grade B | 80 | 100% | – | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Thunderbird add-on that exports and imports messages and folders as EML, MBOX, HTML, PDF, plain text or CSV, and can back up the Thunderbird profile. |
Grade B | 80 | 100% | – | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Command-line tool, run as mbsync, that synchronizes IMAP mailboxes with local Maildir folders in both directions, including deletions and flag changes. |
Grade B | 80 | 100% | – | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Command-line tool that synchronizes IMAP mailboxes with local Maildir folders in both directions, so mail can be read offline and kept as a local copy. |
Grade B | 80 | 100% | – | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Command-line tool that copies or migrates mail between two IMAP accounts, often used for mailbox migrations and incremental backups to another IMAP server. |
Grade D | 40 | 100% | – | Yes | No | Partial | No |
Free Windows program for private use that archives mail from IMAP and POP3 accounts, Gmail, Outlook.com, Outlook, Thunderbird and PST or EML files into one searchable local archive, and can restore messages. |
Grade F | 10 | 100% | Germany Fourteen Eyes | No | No | Partial | No |
Google's data export service for Google accounts. It exports Gmail as an MBOX file, along with data from other Google products, as a download or to a cloud storage service, once or on a schedule. |
Grade F | 0 | 100% | United States Five Eyes | No | No | No | No |
Questions
What is the most private option among email backup tools?
No pick has been made yet. The table above is sorted by score, based on public evidence.
How are email backup tools rated?
Each entry answers 4 questions: open source, no trackers or telemetry, no ads or data sales and independent audit. Answers need links to evidence. See the full criteria.
Does jurisdiction matter?
Jurisdiction decides which laws can compel a provider to hand over data. Each entry shows its country and whether it is in the Five, Nine or Fourteen Eyes. The data a provider can hand over depends mostly on what it stores and who holds the keys. Read about jurisdictions and the CLOUD Act.