Cleanfox vs Paperweight

Cleanfox is a free service for removing unwanted email and unsubscribing from newsletters. It identifies recurring senders and lets users decide what to keep before cleaning. For a newsletter, users can remove all its messages, delete received emails while staying subscribed, or keep it. Mail support includes Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo Mail, iCloud Mail, and most other providers. Card and list views help sort newsletters, with bulk actions in list view; users can add multiple mailboxes and sort them together. Automatic cleanup rules are available. An initial mailbox scan takes an average of 30 minutes to 3 hours. Deleted messages move to the mailbox trash and remain recoverable until the email provider empties it, typically after 5 to 30 days. Cleanfox says it uses end-to-end encryption, does not read or sell emails, and anonymizes newsletter and commercial-transaction data for market statistics. It says users are not targeted by advertising. Attachment downloading and deletion is marked “Soon.” Cleanfox is available on Android, iOS, and the web.

Paperweight is a desktop app that scans email to map accounts, mailing lists, and personal data, then helps users clean up and prepare data access or deletion requests. It builds a company inventory from messages such as receipts, sign-up confirmations, password resets, and security alerts. The app identifies mailing lists for unsubscribe requests and detects personal details in past messages, including addresses, payment cards, IBANs, and national identifiers. It supports Gmail, Outlook, Apple/iCloud, standard IMAP accounts, and Proton Mail through Proton Bridge. Analysis and database storage happen locally; the maker says its servers do not receive email content or credentials. Published under the MIT license, the app lets users inspect or build its code. Free includes one email account with full-history sync and overview features. Pro costs $60 a year, billed yearly, and adds cleanup actions, multiple accounts, privacy requests, and MCP access. Requests are prepared for user review, not sent automatically. Paperweight focuses on relationships found in the inbox and does not remove data-broker records.