Mailpile

Mailpile is a free and open-source email client with the main focus of privacy and usability. It is a webmail client, albeit one run from the user's computer, as a downloaded program launched as a local website.

Mailpile
Original author(s)Bjarni Rúnar Einarsson, Brennan Novak, Smári McCarthy[1][2]
Developer(s)The Mailpile Team
Initial release13 September 2014 (2014-09-13)[3]
Stable release1.0.0rc6 (September 4, 2019 (2019-09-04)[4]) [±]
Repository
Written inPython
Operating systemLinux, macOS, Windows
PlatformWeb platform
Available inMore than 14 languages[5]
TypeWebmail
LicenseAffero General Public License v3[6]
Websitewww.mailpile.is

Features

In the default setup of the program, the user is given a public and a private PGP key, for the purpose of (respectively) receiving encrypted email and then decrypting it.[7] Mailpile uses PGP and stores all locally generated files in encrypted form on-disk. The client takes an opportunistic approach to finding other users to encrypt to, those that support it, and integrates this in the process of sending email.

History

Mailpile started out as a search engine in 2011.

Crowdfunding

The project gained recognition following an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign, raising $163,192 between August and September 2013.[8][9] In the middle of the campaign, PayPal froze a large portion of the raised funds, and subsequently released them after Mailpile took the issue to the public on blogs and social media platforms including Twitter.[10][11]

Alpha

The first publicly tagged release 0.1.0[12] from January 2014 included an original typeface (also by the name of "Mailpile"), UI feedback of encryption and signatures, custom search engine, integrated spam-filtering support, and localization to around 30 languages.[13]

Alpha II

July 2014 This release introduced storing logs encrypted, partial native IMAP support, and the spam filtering engine gained more ways to auto-classify e-mail. The graphical interface was revamped. A wizard was introduced to help users with account setup.[14]

Beta

Mailpile released a beta version in September 2014.[15][16]

Beta II

January 2015 1024 bit keys were no longer being generated, in favour of stronger, 4096 bit PGP keys.[17]

Beta III

July 2015[18]

Release Candidate

A preliminary version of the 1.0 version was released on 13 August at the Dutch SHA2017 Hacker Camp, where the main developer gave a talk about the project.[19]

References
  1. Finley, Klint (August 26, 2013). "Open Sourcers Pitch Secure Email in Dark Age of PRISM". Wired. Retrieved March 8, 2014.
  2. "Mailpile.is". Mailpile Team. Retrieved 2014-02-21.
  3. Mailpile Team (13 September 2014). "One Year Later: Mailpile Beta". Mailpile Blog. Retrieved 29 September 2014. External link in |website= (help)
  4. "Releases - mailpile/Mailpile". Retrieved 29 June 2020 – via GitHub.
  5. "Mailpile translation statistics". mailpile.is. 1 September 2014. Retrieved 2014-09-13.
  6. "Licensing AGPLv3". Retrieved 8 September 2015.
  7. Finley, Klint (3 September 2014). "The Open Source Tool That Lets You Send Encrypted Emails to Anyone". Wired. Retrieved 29 September 2014.
  8. Lomas, Natasha (20 August 2013). "Mailpile Is A Pro-Privacy, Open Source Webmail Project That's Raised ~$100,000 On Indiegogo". TechCrunch. Retrieved 29 September 2014.
  9. "Mailpile - taking e-mail back". IndieGoGo. Retrieved 29 September 2014.
  10. Hutchinson, Lee (5 September 2013). "PayPal freezes $45,000 of Mailpile's crowdfunded dollars". ArsTechnica. Retrieved 29 September 2014.
  11. Masnick, Mike (5 September 2013). "Insanity: PayPal Freezes Mailpile's Account, Demands Excessive Info To Get Access". TechDirt. Retrieved 29 September 2014.
  12. Release Notes 201401 Alpha, GitHub, 1 February 2014
  13. Mailpile Team (1 February 2014). "Alpha Release: Shipping Bits and Atoms". Mailpile Blog. Retrieved 21 February 2014. External link in |website= (help)
  14. Release Notes 201406 Alpha II, GitHub, 3 July 2014
  15. Release Notes 201409 Beta, GitHub, 30 September 2014
  16. Hutchinson, Lee (15 September 2014). "Mailpile enters beta—It's like Gmail, but you run it on your own computer". Ars Technica. Retrieved 29 September 2014.
  17. Release Notes 201501 Beta II, GitHub, 20 January 2015
  18. Release Notes 201507 Beta III, GitHub, 2 May 2017
  19. Bjarni Rúnar: Mailpile: Still Hacking Anyway, mailpile : blog, 13 August 2017
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