InboxSweeper vs mailtrim
InboxSweeper
github.commailtrim
github.comSide by side
| Figure | InboxSweeper | mailtrim |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Email Cleanup Software | 8.7 (#5) | 7.6 (#19) |
| Authentication | The product uses a scoped Gmail or Yahoo app password over IMAP rather than OAuth or Google Sign-In. | Gmail setup uses OAuth, while IMAP setup accepts server credentials and keeps the password out of local storage. |
| Email providers | Gmail is fully supported; Yahoo and other IMAP inboxes are experimental. | It works with Gmail and IMAP services, including Outlook, Fastmail, iCloud, and self-hosted IMAP servers. |
| Purpose | InboxSweeper bulk deletes old promotions and newsletters and unsubscribes from mailing lists. | mailtrim is a command-line tool for finding and cleaning up inbox clutter. |
| Support | The project directs users who encounter an unlisted issue to open a GitHub issue with their OS, browser, and the exact wording of the problem. | The README directs users to GitHub Issues for bug reports and feature requests. |
| Telemetry | Anonymous counters containing an install identifier, operating system, version, and aggregate totals are sent unless INBOXSWEEPER_NO_TELEMETRY=1 is set. | The privacy policy says mailtrim has no analytics, crash reporting, or usage tracking. |
Plans
In their own words
InboxSweeper
InboxSweeper is a free, open-source tool for clearing old promotional mail and newsletters and unsubscribing from mailing lists. It supports Gmail fully; Yahoo and other IMAP inboxes are experimental. Choose among three sweep modes: Sloth targets mail older than two years, Normal mail older than one year, and MadMax includes recent promotional mail. Their respective run caps are 25, 50, and 100 senders. Before moving messages, sweeps show counts; financial, security, payment, receipt, and government mail is protected. You can unsubscribe, move selected messages to Trash, or report senders as spam. Trash messages are described as recoverable for about 30 days. One-click and mailto unsubscribe options are supported; web-link-only options are flagged for manual handling. The tool runs on your computer and says it does not upload mail, credentials, or tokens. It offers a local browser interface, Windows executable, terminal CLI, and AI-agent instructions. It uses a scoped app password rather than Google OAuth, with credentials stored in macOS Keychain or a locked file.
mailtrim
mailtrim is a free, MIT-licensed Linux command-line tool for finding and clearing inbox clutter. It ranks senders by storage impact, then lets users bulk-delete selected senders or an entire domain; one command can remove more than 300 messages from one sender. A dry-run preview shows the proposed deletion first, and deleted mail remains restorable from Trash for up to 30 days. It works with Gmail and IMAP services such as Outlook, Fastmail, iCloud, and self-hosted servers. Gmail uses OAuth, while IMAP credentials do not retain the password locally. Optional AI tools provide triage, natural-language bulk operations, and weekly digests, but are disabled by default. When Anthropic handles AI requests, subjects, sender details, and snippets are sent, not full bodies or attachments. Metadata, tokens, rules, and undo logs stay under ~/.mailtrim/, with no analytics or usage tracking.