Your email is yours. Not ours.
File13 is an inbox triage tool — not an email client. It connects to your existing accounts, fetches only headers, and never touches a server we own. No account creation. No subscriptions. No ads. No tracking. No investors — which means no one is pressuring us to monetize your attention, harvest your data, or grow at your expense. We answer to you, and only you. Processing is local. Privacy is the whole point.
An instrument, not a client.
Most mail apps want to be where you live. File13 is the opposite. You open it when an inbox has gotten away from you, work through it quickly, and close it. Your mail client stays where it is.
Everything you need to triage a real inbox.
File13 groups your mail the way your eyes already do — by sender, by subject, by date — and lets you act on entire groups in one motion.
Sender view
Collapse the inbox into one row per sender. See volume, read rate, replies, and unsubscribe links at a glance.
Subject clusters
Group related threads by normalized subject. Useful for receipts, notifications, and recurring digests.
Date view
Walk the inbox by week or month. Archive everything older than a date with one action.
Bulk actions
Delete, archive, or move thousands of messages with a buffered undo window. Nothing leaves the client until the timer expires.
Unsubscribe workflows
One-click List-Unsubscribe handling, including the one-click POST flow. File13 never sends mail on your behalf.
Rules
Persistent rules run on each fetch. Conditions are header-based; actions are bounded; VIPs are protected by default.
VIP detection
Senders you reply to or read consistently are flagged automatically. Destructive bulk actions skip them unless you opt in.
AI assistance
Optional categorization and rule suggestions. Default provider is Apple Foundation Models, on-device.
Bundled CLI Pro
The file13 binary ships inside the app. Scriptable triage for power users, cron jobs, and CI. Requires File13 Pro.
Metadata only. By design, not by policy.
The privacy posture is a constraint in the code, not a promise in a settings pane. There is no toggle that turns on body downloads, because there is no code path that downloads bodies.
What File13 reads
- Headers —
From,To,Subject,Date List-UnsubscribeandList-Id- Flags — read, replied, flagged
- Folder and account name
- Message size as reported by the server
What File13 never reads
- Message bodies, in any format
- Attachments or inline images
- Tracking pixels — they are never fetched
- HTML rendered content
- Anything outside the folders you connect
On-device first. External providers are optional and key-scoped.
The default provider is Apple Foundation Models, which runs on-device or in Apple's Private Cloud Compute. If you choose to use Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, or Perplexity, you supply your own API key and the request goes from your machine to their endpoint. File13 has no inference server of its own.
What is sent: senders, subjects, list headers, dates, flags, and read state. What is not sent: anything else.
-
Apple Foundation Models
On-device · default recommended -
Anthropic Claude
Your API key optional -
OpenAI
Your API key optional -
Google Gemini
Your API key optional -
Perplexity
Your API key optional
The same engine, scripted.
file13 ships inside the app bundle and is unlocked
by File13 Pro. Install the symlink from Edit → Install File13
CLI… and the binary becomes available in your shell. Accounts and
credentials are shared with the GUI through the same keychain
access group.
The CLI is intended for automation that the GUI cannot reasonably cover: nightly digests of new senders, cron-driven archival, or staged cleanups reviewed in a pull request.
$ file13 senders --min-count 50 --read-rate 0
# archive everything from a sender, dry run first
$ file13 archive --from news@example.com --dry-run
$ file13 archive --from news@example.com
# export the current sender table for review elsewhere
$ file13 senders --format tsv > senders.tsv
One purchase. Unlimited mailboxes.
File13 is a one-time purchase via the Mac App Store, with Universal Purchase across Mac, iPhone, and iPad, and Family Sharing enabled. The free tier is fully functional on all of your Apple devices for one mailbox; Pro adds unlimited mailboxes and the bundled command-line tool.
- One mailbox
- Mac, iPhone, and iPad
- All triage features
- On-device AI (Apple Foundation Models)
- External AI providers (your API keys)
- Everything in Free
- Unlimited mailboxes
- Command-line tool (
file13) - Family Sharing
- Future updates included
Pricing in USD. Local currency, taxes, and availability handled by the App Store. “Lifetime” refers to the commercially supported life of the product, defined in the support policy.
Three ways people use it.
The quarterly purge
Open File13 on a Sunday. Sort senders by volume, archive newsletters older than 90 days, unsubscribe from the bottom quartile, and close the app for another quarter.
The post-conference cleanup
Filter senders that first wrote to you in the last two weeks. Move the worthwhile ones to a follow-up folder. Delete the rest.
The scripted nightly
Run file13 from cron. Archive receipts to a receipts folder, surface any new high-volume sender by email digest, and exit.
Common questions.
Does File13 replace my email client?
No. File13 is a triage instrument. It cannot read message bodies and has no SMTP, so it cannot send mail. Use it alongside Mail, Outlook, or whatever you already have.
How does it connect to my mail?
Over IMAP, using a password or app-specific password. Credentials are stored in the macOS or iOS Keychain. iCloud Keychain sync is opt-in. There is no File13 server, and no account to create.
What does “metadata only” actually mean?
File13 issues FETCH commands for headers, flags, and structure — never BODY[]. Tracking pixels and external images are not requested. The full data model is documented on the security page.
Is the AI required?
No. Every AI feature is optional and can be disabled. The default provider is Apple Foundation Models, which runs on-device. External providers require your own API key.
What happens to my data if I stop paying?
Nothing. File13 is a one-time purchase, not a subscription. Your headers cache is local to your device. Your credentials are in your Keychain. There is nothing to revoke.
Can the CLI delete my whole inbox?
Yes, given enough flags, which is why every destructive command supports --dry-run and respects the same VIP and confirmation rules as the GUI. The CLI page covers safeguards in detail.
Does File13 work with Gmail and Outlook?
Yes, as standard IMAP, using an app-specific password. OAuth scaffolding is in place but no provider is currently wired — see the security page for context.
Is the source available?
Yes. File13 is open source under the MIT License — read it, build it, or fork it on GitHub. The Mac App Store build is a paid convenience; it isn't required to use the software. Third-party components are credited on the acknowledgments page.