An Unroll.me alternative, by the facts.
Unroll.me is a free service for unsubscribing from mailing lists and rolling the rest into a digest. Here is what its owners, the press and the Federal Trade Commission have said about how it handles mail, each with a source, and how Mail Housekeeper differs.
What Unroll.me is
Checked November 2026. Numbers in brackets link to the sources at the bottom of the page.
Who owns it
Slice, a shopping and package tracking app owned by Rakuten, bought Unroll.me in November 2014.[1][2] Its privacy notice now describes Unrollme LLC as "a NielsenIQ company".[3]
What it costs
Signing up is free, and the App Store lists the app as free. It supports Gmail, iCloud, Yahoo, AOL, Outlook and Google Apps, according to its App Store listing.[4][5]
The 2017 report
In April 2017 The New York Times reported that Slice, "using an email digest service it owns named Unroll.me", collected customers' emailed Lyft receipts and sold the anonymized data to Uber. Slice confirmed to reporters that it sells anonymized data based on ride receipts, without saying who buys it.[6][7]
The 2019 FTC settlement
On August 8, 2019 the FTC announced a settlement. Its complaint alleged that Unrollme "falsely told consumers that it would not 'touch' their personal emails", when it was sharing users' e-receipts with its parent company, Slice, which "uses anonymous purchase information from Unrollme users' e-receipts in the market research analytics products it sells". The FTC finalized the order on December 17, 2019. It requires Unrollme to delete stored e-receipts previously collected from those consumers unless they give express consent.[8][9][10]
What its privacy notice says today
The notice says Unroll.me collects "copies of the Commercial Emails received" in each connected account and provides customers with "market intelligence, analytics, datasets, and measurement products", which it calls its consumer panel. In the USA it says it may "sell" or "share", as U.S. law defines those terms, some types of personal information, and that for panelists this can include data about the commercial emails they receive and some demographic characteristics, provided to customers such as e-commerce businesses, investment companies, consumer brands, media companies and data brokers.[3]
In fairness
The same notice says "your directly identifiable Personal Information will never be sold or shared with Unroll.Me's customers to target you or sell to you."[3] Its business model is stated openly in that notice.
How Mail Housekeeper differs
Unroll.me is free and is part of a market research company. Mail Housekeeper charges once and has no data business. Here is the rest, line by line.
Either can be the right choice. If free matters most and you are comfortable with a consumer panel, Unroll.me says plainly how it works. If you would rather pay a few dollars once and keep your mail out of any dataset, that is what Mail Housekeeper is for.
Questions
Did Unroll.me sell user data?
In 2017 The New York Times reported that Unroll.me's owner, Slice, sold anonymized data drawn from users' Lyft receipts to Uber, and Slice confirmed it sells anonymized data based on ride receipts. In 2019 the FTC alleged Unroll.me misled people about how it used their e-receipts, and the company settled.
What did the FTC say about Unroll.me?
The FTC's complaint alleged that Unrollme falsely told consumers it would not touch their personal emails, while it shared their e-receipts with its parent company, Slice. The settlement was announced on August 8, 2019 and finalized on December 17, 2019.
Is Mail Housekeeper free like Unroll.me?
The scan is free and every step is free during the launch trial. After the trial, the full cleanup is $8 once per mailbox. Mail Housekeeper never sells or shares your data, raw or anonymized.
Sources
- TechCrunch, Nov 24, 2014: Rakuten's Slice buys Unroll.me
- Retail Dive, Aug 13, 2014: Rakuten buys e-commerce app Slice
- Unroll.me Privacy Notice (effective April 14, 2025)
- Unroll.me home page
- Unroll.me on the App Store
- The New York Times, Apr 23, 2017: Uber's C.E.O. Plays With Fire
- The Intercept, Apr 24, 2017: quotes the Times report and Slice's confirmation
- FTC press release, Aug 8, 2019: Operator of email management service settles FTC allegations
- FTC press release, Dec 17, 2019: FTC finalizes settlement
- FTC case page: Unrollme Inc., In the Matter of (File No. 172 3139)
Checked November 2026.
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