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Feather Mail
Fast, minimal email for Linux, built in Rust and GTK4
1 follower
Fast, minimal email for Linux, built in Rust and GTK4
1 follower
Feather Mail is a native Linux email client, written in Rust with GTK4. The inbox opens from a local cache and syncs in the background, so there is no blank screen while it reaches the server. Several mailboxes read as one list, search covers all of them, and work done offline finishes when the network returns. Any IMAP mailbox works, and an account your desktop already holds is added in one press. JavaScript is off in mail, remote images are blocked, passwords stay in the keyring.
First time posting Feather Mail here, so here is the whole thing rather than a version note.
I use Linux full time and wanted a mail client that opens fast, stays out of the way, and is not a web app in a wrapper. Feather Mail is my attempt: a three-pane inbox written in Rust and GTK4, talking plain IMAP and SMTP, keeping everything in a local SQLite store.
What that means day to day: the inbox draws from the local cache, so it is on screen before the server answers. Sync runs behind it, and IDLE brings new mail in without polling. Work you do offline sits in a queue and finishes in order when the network comes back.
Adding an account asks one question first: IMAP or Linux. IMAP is the ordinary route, with presets for Google, Microsoft and Yandex or your own server, and autoconfig filling in whatever you leave blank. Linux lists the mailboxes your desktop session already holds through GNOME Online Accounts; one press adds one, with no browser window and no app password. Feather Mail ships no Google client secret for that path. The token comes from your session's own account manager over D-Bus, and you revoke it in Settings > Online Accounts, where the account actually lives.
Several mailboxes read as one list, and search, folders, threads, stars, snooze, drafts and attachments all work across them.
There is also a local MCP server, off until you turn it on, for letting an assistant work with your mail. Each client gets its own permission profile, everything it does lands in an audit log, sending or deleting stops for a confirmation in the app window, and results carry metadata only. Message bodies never go out through it.
Nothing is collected, so there is no analytics setting to turn off. Mail renders in an isolated WebKitGTK view with JavaScript off and remote images blocked until you allow them; 1x1 beacons and known tracker hosts stay blocked even after you do. Passwords go to the Secret Service keyring, never into the database.
The honest state of it: young project, currently 0.3.0, x86_64 only for now, as .deb and AppImage. The one-press path needs GNOME Online Accounts, so KDE and bare Sway or i3 take the IMAP branch. Interactive Microsoft OAuth is not exposed yet.
GPL-3.0. Source, releases and issues:
github.com/prodocik/feathermail
If it breaks on your distro I would rather hear about it.