Sharing your information via eMail and keeping private information or downloading your emails on a company’s servers bothers a lot of users and rightfully so. Out of curiosity, privacy statements and other information was checked for some of the most popular email clients to see how they treat security and privacy and if they download your email to their servers rather than giving direct access from your device to your email server.
Below is a list of the results it’s not complete but it does include many of the most popular email clients. Hopefully this will be of some use to those who are concerned about how their email is routed and what is happening to their information.
The more stars a client is assigned, the more strikes against it. So one star is good, six stars is bad. The information in this report is a combination of information from the email client’s websites, their privacy statements, and product reviews from various sources. Rankings may be, admittedly and necessarily, somewhat subjective but that was a minor factor. A sincere effort has been made to stick to the facts and just the facts and that is the real basis for the rankings. Unfortunately, the results were very disappointing. Most of the clients failed to meet the very basic privacy requirements as defined for the purposes of this list.
The Rules
- A client is considered insecure if it does keep information about you on their servers and/or may share it for various purposes.
- A client is considered insecure if email is downloaded to their servers.
- A client is considered secure if it does not keep your email or information about you on their servers and/or share it.
Email Security Test
In addition to the findings of this survey, run a security test of your email client. Email Privacy Tester is a free and effective way to test your email client for privacy leaks and security bugs.
Check Provider-TLS:
https://www.checktls.com/
Email IP Leak Test:
http://emailipleak.com/
Email Privacy Tester:
https://emailprivacytester.com/
Email Trace:
http://www.ip-adress.com/trace_email/
THE RESULTS
Insecure email clients:
Boxer – Has privacy statement, does store and share information.
Inbox – Has privacy statement, does store and share information.
Gmail – Has privacy statement, does store and share information.
MailWise – Has privacy statement, does store and share information.
CloudMagic – Has privacy statement, does share information. Does download email to their servers.
TypeMail – Has privacy statement, does share information. Does download email to their servers.
MyMail – Has privacy statement, does share information. Does download email to their servers.
Microsoft Outlook – Has privacy statement, does share information. Does download email to their servers.
BlueMail – Has privacy statement, does share information. Does download email to their servers.
Mailbox – Has privacy statement, does not share information. Does download email to their servers.
Alto – Has privacy statement, does share information. Does download email to their servers.
Solmail – – Has privacy statement, does store and share information.
Yahoo Mail – Has privacy statement, does store and share information.
Aqua Mail – Has privacy statement, does store and share information.
Secure email clients:
Blue Mail – No privacy statement or could not find. Developer says no information is kept or shared.
K-9 – Has privacy statement, does not store or share information.
Nine – Has privacy statement, does not store or share information.
Maildroid – No privacy statement or could not find. Developer says no information is kept or shared.
K-@ Mail – Has privacy statement, does not store or share information.
Privacy statement links
K-9 https://github.com/site/privacy:
TypeMail https://github.com/site/privacy & http://www.typeapp.com/privacy/
MyMail http://legal.my.com/us/mail/privacy/
CloudMagic https://cloudmagic.com/k/privacypolicy
Mailwise http://mail-wise.com/privacy/
Outlook https://www.acompli.com/privacy-policy/
Gmail http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/
Inbox http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/
Nine http://www.9folders.com/privacy-policy/
Mailbox (by Dropbox) https://www.dropbox.com/privacy?mobile=1 (offline since 2016)
Boxer http://www.getboxer.com/privacy/
BlueMail https://bluemail.me/privacy/
Maildroid http://flipdogsolutions.com/policy.htm
Alto http://privacy.aol.com/privacy-policy
Solmail http://mail.sol.daum.net/mail?lang=en
Yahoo Mail https://policies.yahoo.com/us/en/yahoo/privacy/topics/mobile/index.htm
K-@ Mail https://github.com/site/privacy
Should I Be Using a Desktop Email Client?
A lot of people I know just use webmail (specifically, Gmail), and seem very happy, but the desktop options are intriguing. How do I know which option is best for me? Which Is Better: A Desktop Client or Webmail?
If you’re struggling with the “which is better” question, you’ll find no definitive answers here, mostly because, there is no definitive answer. For some users, a desktop client will run rings around webmail any day of the week. For others, a desktop client is unnecessary and limiting compared to webmail.
Personally, I use a combination of ProtonMail (webmail) and Thunderbird every day for the seven or so email accounts I manage, and without a desktop client it would be impossible to keep them all clean and tidy without the flexibility to respond as each account, move mail between them quickly, and tailor my notifications so I only see what’s important.
CK’s Technology News 
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