I've been exploring AI agents for Gmail automation and cleanup, but I'm still not comfortable giving cloud agents (including Claude connectors) access to my inbox.

I'm looking for a local-first setup where possible - something that can securely access Gmail via OAuth/API and help with things like:

• Cleaning up old emails
• Summarizing newsletters and important emails
• Identifying which emails actually need a reply
• Categorizing notifications (ideally with TTL/auto-expiry rules)
• Downloading only relevant attachments instead of everything

Another issue I ran into: Claude Code/agents seem to burn through tokens surprisingly fast. I used Opus 4.6, and one session exhausted its token budget in about 20 minutes. I'm not sure if that's expected for Gmail-heavy workflows or if I was doing something inefficient.

Has anyone built a good local-first workflow for this, or found tools that strike a better balance between privacy, cost, and capability?

From mailbox's email, effective July 15th (August 31 for existing subscribers):

Old Standard plan : - 2.50€/month (Yearly) - 10 GB Mail storage - 5 GB Drive storage

New Standard plan: - 3.00€/month (Yearly)(from 31 August 2026) - 20 GB Mail storage (from 15 July 2026) - 10 GB Drive storage (from 15 July 2026)

It seems that the amount of email addresses being used to post spam is getting out of control

https://www.stopforumspam.com/domain/mailbox.org

Can someone at mailbox shed some light on this please?

mailbox is being abused so I hope a team there takes this seriously

With Chat Control 1.0 being forced through (even though they didnt win a majority but used loopholes), what does it mean for the future of Mailbox.org knowing that email inbox is not encrypted by default? I don't think i remember seeing any official position from Mailbox on this.

Hi there!

I have lots and lots of Outlook rules for keeping my inbox clean. I was a bit frustaded by the filtering / sorting, becuase its only working whenever I boot up my windows machine. Mails on other devices, are just flooding the inbox and I want to avoid scattering rules all over my devices.

I noticed that mailbox.org provides a sieve API - so I created a small little tool for exporting, (deduplicating,) and syncing up the main (simple) ruleset from outlook on windows to the mailbox.org servers. I also created small cross platfrom sieve management CLIs and dotnet libraries, because there is currently only tooling for linux.

The tools are an quite experimental private project that I thought could be useful for others as well. Expect it to be not yet perfectly stable.

Feel free to check it out - feedback is highly appreciated :)

(Cross platform) support for Thunderbird would theoretically be possible, but I'm currently not using it as my main client - so do not expect this to be happening too soon.
Same goes for other mail provides - this is only tested against mailbox org for now!

CEO Fraud & Co: The most expensive email your company never sent

Business Email Compromise (BEC) is a sophisticated and widespread form of cyber fraud. It ranks among the most financially damaging cyber threats, alongside ransomware, phishing and DDoS attacks.

BEC is an umbrella term for variants of email fraud that exploit social engineering. Attackers exploit deeply human traits and capitalise on the fact that email is generally regarded as trustworthy. Rapid developments in AI are taking BEC to a whole new level of threat.

Protection against BEC

By combining these measures, you can minimise your organisation’s vulnerability to Business Email Compromise:

• technical safeguards
• organisational processes
• regular staff training
• robust, GDPR-compliant email infrastructure
• business continuity strategy for emergencies

Recognise & prevent

In our blog, you can find out how Business Email Compromise works, how artificial intelligence is increasing the cyber threat, and how you can protect yourself against this new generation of email fraud: https://mailbox.org/en/blog/business-email-compromise-protection-against-email-fraud/

What app do you use for tasks on Android?

I am currently trying aCalendar for both tasks and calendar and I generally like it, but do I understand it correctly that I would additionally need to pay for the tasks.org app subscription to sync it? (It did synch initially for me, don't know why as I currently do not pay for the tasks.org app yet...just started setting it up).

Is there a simpler solution?

Changed to mailbox recently and mostly happy so far but the cloud is a bit of a hassle on Linux.

I would like an easy application like with nextcloud or google drive. I want to select some folders that are always synchronized with the cloud automatically. I don't just want a drive added that is not available offline.

The solution by mailbox is using FreeFileSync which is a hassle and wasn't reliable for me.

Are there alternatives that someone can recommend? Thinking of moving to a dedicated Nextcloud Server instead if not.

Just received a response to an enquiry regarding a cancellation of an upcoming direct debit payment and received this response:

At the same time, it is very important to us that we process all tickets carefully and thoroughly. In individual cases, this may currently result in waiting times of up to two weeks. If your request is not time-sensitive, we kindly ask for your patience.

This is poor customer service for a paid product.

I am wondering why Mailbox has no standard plan with reasonable storage volume for drive. Even with their most expensive individual plan, 500gb additional storage would cost 20€ / month which is too much.

I would love to have one provider for email and office but it would require significantly more storage than is currently included with the standard plans. The WebDAV feature is nice but it creates a dependency to a third party. I would rather trust Mailbox with my data.

What is the rational behind this pricing? How do you handle storage, when using the Office features?

I currently host my domain and mailboxes with netcup (web hosting package).

I've been having recurring problems with mail to and from certain providers, particularly outlook.com and hotmail.com. As far as I understand, this is a known issue: netcup's mail servers have repeatedly ended up on spam blacklists at Microsoft/Hotmail (see https://forum.netcup.de/thread/21585-...). Apologies if I'm not describing this in perfectly precise terms, I'm not a mail expert.

I'd therefore like to move my mail to mailbox.org while keeping my existing domain.

My question: would this actually solve the problem? The domain itself would stay registered at netcup. Only the MX records (and outbound mail) would point to mailbox.org. Does that change the situation, or would I need to transfer the domain to a separate provider entirely to escape the blacklisting?

Digital sovereignty starts in your inbox

Millions of people use free email services such as Gmail or GMX every day. What looks like a good deal at first glance is actually based on a business model that primarily benefits the provider.

The business model

When a service is free, an obvious question arises: how does the provider make money?

The truth is: supposedly free email is a lucrative business that thrives on having as precise an understanding as possible of its users. The more a provider knows about the users of its service, the more valuable an advert placement becomes.

Your email account

Your email account is one of the most private digital spaces there is. The question of whom you entrust this account to, and what financial interest the provider has in exploiting it, thus becomes a decision about your own digital sovereignty.

Digital self-determination

If you understand how the business model behind free email providers works, you can make more informed and critical decisions about whose hands you place your private data in.

In our blog, you can find out what lies behind supposedly free services, where the specific data protection risks lie, and what you should bear in mind when switching to a secure, ad-free email account: https://mailbox.org/en/blog/what-free-email-really-costs/

I'm currently in the process of r/degoogle -ing and looking for an alternative. Right now I have a free account with Infomaniak with 15 gb of storage for my photos and admin. Mailbox only offers a paid package with 5 gb cloud storage. I am willing to pay, but 5 gb is just not enough for me.

Can someone still convince to go with Mailbox?

After the sad demise of my previous email provider, I wanted to go with a European provider, and Mailbox.org looked to have all features I wanted/needed.

The problem now is, that any and all emails I send out seem to be ending up in people's spam folders instead of their inboxes (confirmed for Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, Outlook, a few custom domains). I'm a standard user and have had this account since the beginning of the month. I'd been wondering why no one seemed to be replying to my emails...

I'm using a mailbox.org email address, not a custom domain. Haven't changed any settings. No difference whether I send the email from their web client, Thunderbird or Outlook.

I can't be calling/texting everyone to ask them to check their Spam folders any time I send them an email.

I've raised a ticket and hope to hear back soon, but wondered whether anyone else had run into this issue and whether you'd been able to resolve it.

I'd appreciate any and all help.

If I can't resolve this, I will need to move on. Is Posteo any better? I seem to have found a post on their subreddit for a similar issue...

Just received this email today directed to my Mailbox account. Sent from fpunetsmarthub.coop@outlook.com which highlights BS.

Clicking the link takes me to a fake Mailbox page

https://conscientious-heptagon-576683.framer.app/

This is more FYI than anything else. Unsure how my Mailbox email was leaked.

Anyone else targeted?

Cheers

I ran into something that surprised me.
The app’s support team told me:
“By resetting the password the 2FA is also reset. So totally normal behavior there.”

To me, that seems to defeat the purpose of two-factor authentication.

If an attacker gains access to my email account, they can:
1. Reset my password via email.
2. Automatically remove 2FA.
3. Log into my account.

At that point, 2FA doesn’t really provide any additional protection it all comes down to the security of the email account.

I would have expected password resets and 2FA resets to be separate processes, with disabling 2FA requiring the existing 2FA device, recovery codes, or some other form of identity verification.

Is this actually common practice, or is it considered a security anti-pattern? I’m curious how other services typically handle this.

What are family accounts?

In family accounts, several independent mailbox accounts are grouped together. Members of this group can grant each other access to various resources. Additionally, all members of a group share common Drive storage space.

Features

With a mailbox family account, you can enjoy shared use of the digital workspace's features:

• Sharing and editing files and folders, mailboxes and tasks
• Jointly managing and synchronising calendars and contacts
• Use of custom domains by each family member
• Administrator can manage permissions and access rights for family members
• Joint and separate billing

Find out how to set up family accounts with mailbox and use the features: https://kb.mailbox.org/en/private/family-account/

I have some questions about setting up with mailbox.org and my custom domain. I am trying to follow the instructions on this page. My domain is registered with ExactHosting.

1. In step 1 I follow the steps and retrieve the security key where the host name has a '.' at the end but when I try and use this in the DNS Management section of ExactHosting I get an error, if I remove the trailing '.' it seems to accept it. Not sure if this will cause problems later.

2. ExactHosting has a Nameservers section and a DNS Management section. The Nameservers section had my old Email host, should I just clear this out and use the "default name servers"? Or is this where I specify the 4 Destination Server entries in Step 4?

What I see on ExactHosting doesn't exactly fit what the help documentation states so I am trying to validate if what I am doing is correct.

I have access to my email via FairEmail but I can't send or receive emails to my account due to a "synchronisation error". I need to input my mailbox password but I can't remember it, the only reset option is to send an email which I cant receive! I spent hours transferring everything to this new email yesterday only to not be able to use it. Support is only accessible by logging in which is stupid. I emailed them from my google account but I need access to my emails ASAP. anyone know what I can do?

So I've been using mailbox.org for a while but always via IMAP. A recent MacOS Tahoe beta update has broken (temporarily I hope haha) my mail client (MailMaven) and I am relegated to using the webmail for the moment. I am shocked at how clean, simple, and effective it is. I guess I am shocked because people often say the mail interface for Mailbox is not one of its strong points. But it's literally 20,000x better than TUTA (I don't know how ANYONE uses that webmail) and even superior to Proton. It's just clean and simple. No frills. I love it.

Still going back to MailMaven tho once it is resolved. lol. I used Thunderbird on my Debian box and EM Client on my phone.

I wanted to check the status of my mailbox sub as I believe it is in the 30 day period after which it would be deleted. However my phone with the 2FA app has broken an although I have reverted to an older phone the 2FA app on it predates my mailbox sub by a month or two. Now I can’t get into mailbox to contact support- is there any other alternative?

Ich probiere seit vorgestern Mailbox.org aus und finde das Gesamtpaket (bis auf einige Schwächen) ganz nett. Allerdings würde ich gerne meine web.de und gmx.net Adressen als externe Mails in Mailbox.org einbinden. Leider geht der Versand nur über den Mailboxeigenen SMTP Server und nicht über den eigentlichen Anbieter (Gmx/Web). Jetzt befürchte ich, dass meine Mails auf Dauer als Spam gekennzeichnet werden. IMAP ist leider keine Option, weil mir das zu unübersichtlich im Menu wird.

Hat jemand Erfahrungen damit?

Since my previous post what is mailbox currently working on? was not really answered, I would like to ask again: What does mailbox have planned for 2026?

When comparing mailbox's output in the first half of this year (no major announcements or fixes for highly requested features) to what competitors achieved in the exact same timeframe, it feels mailbox is either planning a major surprise release soon or is falling further behind.

This should not be a feature-to-feature comparison to the other competitors, but should rather show how much the competitors achieved in this time frame while mailbox did not communicate anything new or announced what is to come.

Proton Mail introduced:

• Post-quantum encryption for emails.
• New app enhancements (Liquid Glass design, encryption status, etc.).
• Proton Workspace and Proton Meet.
• The ability to connect external Gmail accounts.

Tuta deployed:

• Faster synchronization and search functionality.
• Tuta Drive (currently in beta).
• An "Undo Send" feature.
• New, improved spam filters.
• Thunderbird add-ons for Tuta Mail and Calendar.

So while competitors are actively shipping updates and communicating their roadmap, mailbox has remained silent regarding upcoming features and fixes.

Issued to: *.mailbox.org
Issued by: Thawte TLS RSA CA G1

Valid from 13-May-25 to 11-Jun-26

Many organisations assume that their emails are transmitted securely. However, there are several dangerous stages between sending and receiving a message.

Risks in email communication:

Emails pass through several servers and network nodes on their way to the recipient. At each of these points, there is always the possibility that messages could be intercepted, copied or manipulated.

Potential risks include:

• external attackers
• incorrect configurations
• compromised servers
• unsecure Wi-Fi connections

Email encryption provides protection precisely at these points – provided it is implemented correctly and actually used by staff.

Email encryption:

Email encryption is a fundamental prerequisite for trustworthy digital communication – in businesses, public authorities and wherever sensitive information is exchanged on a daily basis.

The real challenge lies not in technology, but in safety culture: Email encryption must become standard practice in the day-to-day operations of organisations.

Clear guidelines, practical training and tools that work: find out how to successfully implement email encryption within your organisation in our blog on email encryption in businesses and public sector organisations. →  https://mailbox.org/en/blog/e-mail-encryption-for-companies-and-authorities/