Open Source Desktop Email

Your inbox.Not theirs.

RYZE is a free, open-source email client built around one radical idea: your email belongs to you. No tracking. No cloud accounts you didn't ask for. Just your mail, on your machine, under your control.

Be the first to know when RYZE launches. No spam — ever.

Windows · macOS · Linux
APACHE Licensed
Zero telemetry
Local-first
RYZE — Inbox · jordan@fastmail.com
Compose
Inbox12
Sent
Drafts3
Archive
MK
Mara Klein10:42
Re: Q4 priorities — local-first sync
Cold open is 0.4s, was 1.1 last week. Memory…
FM
Fastmail Support9:15
Your app password was created
A new app password labeled "ryze-mac" was…
GH
GitHub8:31
[ryze/mail] PR #142: Encrypted-cache fallback
tomas-r opened a pull request: "Falls back to…"
TR
tomas@residual.devyest.
Patch: IMAP IDLE backoff (Linux)
Should fix the reconnection loop you mentioned…
Re: Q4 priorities — local-first sync milestone
engineering🔒 encrypted3 messages
MK
Mara Klein
mara@engineering.team · Mon, 3:14 PM

Pulled the SQLite branch and ran the bench. Numbers are good — better than I expected. Cold open is 0.9s on my 2019 MBP, was 1.1s last week. Memory at idle dropped from 400MB to 295MB.

Three things still open before we cut 0.5…

AI summaryon-device
SQLite migration shipped. Cold-launch 1.1s → 0.4s. Three items remain before 0.5. Owe Mara a review.
Zero Telemetry
APACHE Licensed
Local-First Storage
Encrypted Tokens
Sandboxed Renderer
Open Source
No Cloud Required
Tracking Pixel Blocking
Offline Capable
Windows · macOS · Linux
DOMPurify Sanitisation
Free Forever
Zero Telemetry
APACHE Licensed
Local-First Storage
Encrypted Tokens
Sandboxed Renderer
Open Source
No Cloud Required
Tracking Pixel Blocking
Offline Capable
Windows · macOS · Linux
DOMPurify Sanitisation
Free Forever
Three principles

Built on a different premise.

Most email clients answer to a server. RYZE answers to your machine. That single decision rewrites everything else.

01

Local-first

Your messages live in ~/.ryze/db.sqlite, encrypted at rest with SQLCipher. Searchable offline. Backed up however you back up the rest of your machine.

02

No middleman

RYZE has no servers. Mail flows directly between you and your provider — Microsoft, Outlook, Hotmail, Gmail, Icloud, IMAP. We can't track you because there's nothing to track you with.

03

Honest software

Open source under APACHE. Free forever. The whole client is in the repo, including the part that connects to your inbox.

Optional AI

If you want AI in your inbox, you bring the key.

RYZE has no AI of its own. "YET". Plug in your Gemini, OpenAI, Claude Or Local Ollama API key and a “AI Insight” Section Appears, on the right. With smart compose. The key is stored in your OS keychain. Threads are sent directly to your AI provider — never to a RYZE server.

AI summaryon-device · gemini-1.5-flash
14 messages · 2.1s · key from keychain
Engineering completed the local-first SQLite migration last week. Cold-launch dropped from 1.1s to 0.4s; idle memory from 240MB to 95MB. Three items remain before 0.5: IMAP IDLE retry on Linux, app-password rotation review, and an encrypted-cache fallback.
Sent only to Google's API. Not logged. Not retained. Verify with tcpdump.
// The problem

Your email client is
working against you.

Somewhere along the way, email clients stopped being email clients. They became data collection tools with an inbox bolted on. Tracking pixels. Cloud sync you didn't opt into. Ads between your receipts and your mum's birthday reminder. You didn't agree to any of that — you just wanted to check your email.

❌ The rest

  • 👁️ Invisible tracking pixels — loaded silently
  • ☁️ Your emails stored in the cloud not on your machine
  • 💰 Monthly subscription to read your own mail
  • 📢 Ads injected between your messages
  • 🔓 Tokens stored in plaintext — "trust us"
  • 🐌 Launches slower than your commute

✓ RYZE

  • 🛡️ Remote images blocked by default
  • 💾 Emails stored locally, encrypted, on your machine
  • 🆓 Free. Forever. No asterisk.
  • 🚫 Zero ads. Zero analytics. Zero telemetry.
  • 🔑 Tokens encrypted via your OS keychain
  • ⚡ SQLite. Opens instantly.
Features

A real desktop app, not a webview.

110MB download. 295MB memory at idle. Cold-launches in under a second on a 2019 MacBook Pro.

Local-first storage

Your mail is on your disk. Period.

Every message, every attachment, every search index — written to a single SQLite file you can inspect, back up, or move. Encrypted at rest by default; the key lives in your OS keychain.

  • Full-text search runs locally with FTS5
  • Works offline — read, write, queue, search
  • One file. Move it. Back it up. Inspect it.
~/.ryze — zsh
$ ls -lh ~/.ryze
total 184M
-rw-------  1 jordan  staff   184M Oct 28 10:42 db.sqlite
-rw-------  1 jordan  staff    12K Oct 28 10:42 db.sqlite-wal

$ file ~/.ryze/db.sqlite
db.sqlite: data           # encrypted, no SQLite header

$ lsof -i -p $(pgrep RYZE) | grep -v LISTEN
(no output)                # 0 network connections at idle
$
Multi-account

One inbox. As many accounts as you have.

Microsoft 365, Outlook.com, Hotmail, Gmail, Icloud, Imap — connected directly via OAuth2 or app passwords. Unified inbox view, per-account filters, per-account signatures. No federation, no proxying.

  • OAuth2 stays on your machine — no broker server
  • App passwords stored in the OS keychain
  • Per-account encryption, sync intervals, signatures
FM
jordan@fastmail.com
imap.fastmail.com:993 · TLS
● synced
MS
j.lewicki@outlook.com
outlook.office365.com · OAuth2
● synced
HM
jordan99@hotmail.com
imap-mail.outlook.com
● auth
+ Add account · OAuth2 or IMAP
Privacy

Privacy claims you can verify.

Anyone can promise privacy. RYZE writes its promises as testable statements. Run the commands. We'll wait.

01verifiable

Zero servers in the loop.

RYZE doesn't operate any backend. Mail flows directly between your machine and your provider.

$ lsof -i -p $(pgrep RYZE)
02verifiable

Encrypted at rest.

The SQLite database is encrypted with SQLCipher. The key lives in your OS keychain.

$ file ~/.ryze/db.sqlite
03verifiable

No telemetry.

No usage analytics, no crash beacons, no "anonymous metrics." Block our domains. Nothing breaks.

$ grep -r "fetch\|XMLHttpRequest" src/
04verifiable

Source you can audit.

Every line of RYZE — including the parts that talk to your accounts — is in the public repo. MIT licensed.

$ git clone github.com/ryze/mail
// Open Source · MIT License

Don't trust us.
Read the code.

Every security claim on this page is backed by auditable source code. No black boxes. No proprietary "trust our security model." RYZE belongs to the community — and that's not a marketing line.

// APACHE licensed. Fork it. Audit it. Ship it.
View on GitHub ↗Read the docs
FAQ

Reasonable questions.

If yours isn't here, ask in the GitHub discussions.

How does RYZE make money?

Through a Subscription Tier for users who need more. The free tier is unlimited in usage — no paywalled core features, ever. You can connect up to 4 accounts and access basic AI insights at no cost. Upgrading expands those limits for power users who need more accounts or deeper AI capabilities.

Can I customize the look and feel of RYZE?

Yes. RYZE ships with advanced theme customization — choose from built-in themes or build your own with full accent color, font, and density controls. Every panel, sidebar, and reading pane can be adjusted to match how you actually work.

Is there Cloud Sync?

Cloud Sync is available on the Pro tier. Your settings, themes, filters, and account configurations sync across your devices end-to-end encrypted — RYZE servers never see plaintext. On the free tier, everything stays local.

Does RYZE have a built-in Todo List?

Yes. RYZE includes a lightweight task manager built directly into the sidebar. Turn any email into a to-do with one click, set due dates, and manage your list without ever leaving your inbox. Tasks are stored locally in the same SQLite file as your mail.

What other advanced features are available?

RYZE includes smart filters and rules, custom keyboard shortcuts, per-account signatures and send schedules, focus mode for distraction-free reading, and a quick-compose overlay reachable from anywhere on your desktop. More features ship regularly — roadmap is public on GitHub.

What about CalDAV, contacts, calendar?

Out of scope. RYZE is a mail client. There are good local-first calendar apps already; we'd rather integrate with them than rebuild them.

Is the AI required?

No. RYZE works fully without it. AI is an optional feature you enable by pasting in your own API Key. With AI off, RYZE makes zero outbound requests other than to your mail provider.

Why Electron?

Because shipping a fast, accessible mail client to macOS, Windows, and Linux at this scope wasn't feasible any other way. We measured carefully — 110MB download, 295MB idle memory, 1s cold launch. Native would be smaller, but only if we picked one OS.

Be the first
to own your inbox.

RYZE is launching soon. Drop your email and we'll let you know the moment it's ready — no spam, no nonsense.

Free forever. Open source. Launching soon on Windows, macOS & Linux.