What a mass unsubscribe tool needs
To unsubscribe you from a few hundred lists, a tool has to see which companies write to you and send an unsubscribe request for each one. That is the whole job. It does not need to read the body of your mail, keep copies of it, look at your contacts or send mail as you to anyone other than the unsubscribe address.
How much more a tool gets depends on how you connect it. There are three common ways.
Three ways to connect a cleanup tool
- Your real password. The worst option. Whoever holds it can sign in to your account, change your settings, and reset the passwords of everything tied to that address. If the tool is ever breached, so are you. Never type your real email password into a third-party site.
- Sign in with your provider. You approve a list of permissions on a Google or Yahoo screen. This keeps your password private, but read the list. Google describes its broadest Gmail permission as able to "read, compose, send, and permanently delete all your email". A narrower one can read, compose and send but not permanently delete right away, and a metadata permission sees headers but not message bodies. Which one a tool asks for tells you a lot.
- An app password. A separate code your provider generates for one app. A mail program uses it to open your mailbox over IMAP, it is not your real password, and you can delete it on its own at any time. Our page on what an app password is goes deeper.
Questions to ask any tool before you connect it
- Does it store message bodies, or only headers? Headers say who sent what and when. Bodies are your actual mail.
- Does it sell or share data about your mail? Look for a plain no in the privacy policy, not a promise to anonymize.
- Does it delete, or move? A tool that deletes on your behalf can lose something you needed. One that moves to a folder in your own mailbox lets you change your mind.
- Who does it unsubscribe from? Unsubscribing from a spammer confirms your address is real. A careful tool checks the sender first.
- How do you cut it off? You should be able to end its access in one step, without changing your password.
How Mail Housekeeper does it
Mail Housekeeper connects with an app password only, and never asks for your real one. The password is sealed with AES-256-GCM before it reaches our database and opened only by the worker at the moment it connects to your mailbox. Delete it at your provider and our access ends that instant.
- Make an app password for Yahoo, AOL, iCloud or Gmail. Each guide takes about two minutes.
- Run the free scan. It reads headers only and groups every sender by company. It stores the sender, the subject line up to 160 characters, the date, whether you opened it and the unsubscribe header. Never a message body.
- Put companies in the Unsubscribe pile on one review page. One choice covers every address a company sends from.
- Tap done. A checker verifies each sender first. Verified companies get one unsubscribe through the mail header, never a link inside a message. Anything that fails is moved to a holding folder in your own mailbox with no reply sent.
The mail from companies you unsubscribe from moves to Housekeeper hold inside your own account, where you can open it, bring a sender back or empty it when you are ready. We never sell or share your data, and nothing about your mail is used for advertising.
The scan is free and the full cleanup is $8 once per mailbox, free during the launch trial. How it works and pricing have the rest.