Privacy

Your mail is not our business.

Last updated 28 October 2026

Waxwing is a mail client that runs on your Mac. It connects directly to Gmail or your IMAP server. There are no Waxwing servers that receive, store or process your mail, contacts, passwords or search index. An optional Waxwing account holds only your email address and the Macs you sign in on.

In the app

Mail, credentials and the search index stay on your Mac, encrypted on disk, with keys in your Keychain. AI is off until you turn it on. If you use your own Claude or OpenAI key, the conversation you ask about (with quoted history removed), new mail you let it check, and what Ask Your Inbox sends when you ask it a question (below) go straight from your Mac to Anthropic or OpenAI under your own account. Waxwing has no server in between and never sees it. Apple Intelligence runs on your device. If you connect an AI app over MCP, it sees only what the permissions you grant allow.

If you choose to share usage data, Waxwing sends which features you use, that you signed in to a Waxwing account and where, and basic facts about your setup (like how many accounts, which AI choice and whether you're signed in to a Waxwing account), never your mail, addresses or what you search for. Every event also carries a random ID for your Mac (made when you turn sharing on, deleted when you turn it off), the app and macOS versions and your language. Events go through waxwing.email to Amplitude, which receives your country, never your IP address. It's off until you turn it on, and Settings → General → Privacy shows what was sent recently and what's sent with every event.

Search and Ask Your Inbox

Search runs on your Mac, Best Matches included. Best Matches also finds mail by meaning, using Apple's on-device language model to index it. Indexing never sends your mail anywhere, whether or not AI is on. The first time, macOS may download Apple's model for a writing system, such as Latin or Cyrillic; that request names the model, never your mail.

Ask Your Inbox answers a question from your mail, and runs only when you ask. With Apple Intelligence, nothing leaves your Mac. With your own key, it sends only to the company you chose, Anthropic or OpenAI. First it sends your question and the names of your mail's main languages, so the model can write searches, which run on your Mac. Then, if some emails match, it sends your question and short excerpts of up to 10 of the best-matching emails, with quoted history removed, each with its sender, date and subject. Excerpts can include attachment names. Answers aren't saved.

Your Waxwing account

A Waxwing account is optional: Waxwing is a complete mail app without one. During the beta, a free account turns on the rest of its features. Sign-in is run for us by Clerk (Clerk, Inc., United States), which stores your email address and sign-in details as our processor.

For each Mac you sign in on, our database in the EU, run by Neon with hosting by Vercel, keeps your account's Clerk user ID, the Mac's name as set in macOS, the Waxwing and macOS versions, a random ID for that sign-in, a hash of its sign-in token, when it signed in and was last seen, and, once it's signed out, when and why. Signing in also makes a short-lived sign-in code, which works for 5 minutes and is deleted within two days. When Waxwing opens, and about once a day, a signed-in Mac checks the account, sending the random ID for that sign-in, the Waxwing and macOS versions and the IDs of the signing keys it trusts. Vercel sees its IP address in order to deliver the request; we keep only the rate limiter's keyed hash of it, which changes every day. We never receive your mail, contacts, addresses from your mail or what you search for.

We keep a Mac's details while it's signed in. A Mac you sign out is deleted after 30 days, and a Mac not seen for 13 months is removed. Deleting your account, from Manage account at waxwing.email/account or by writing to support@waxwing.email, deletes its Macs from our records within two days. Account details are never added to usage events or setup counts.

Problem reports

If something goes wrong, you can choose Help → Report a Problem. Waxwing also offers to send a report after it quits unexpectedly. Nothing is sent until you press Send, and before that you can see exactly what will go.

A report can contain what you type, an email address if you add one so we can reply, details about your Mac and Waxwing (like the macOS and app versions, the Mac model and language), a summary of your setup (like which kind of account and which AI choice, never the addresses), a log of what Waxwing was doing, and crash details. In the log, email addresses, IP addresses, API keys and similar tokens, and long numbers are replaced with placeholders. Web addresses are cut down to their start and server name, such as https://imap.gmail.com, and server names in web addresses, and most other server names, are hidden unless they belong to a well-known mail provider. Your Mac user name is hidden in file paths, and values the app treats as private appear only as <private>. A report never contains your mail.

Reports go to waxwing.email and are stored in a database in the EU, run by Neon, with hosting by Vercel. We keep a report for 180 days and then delete it. To have yours deleted sooner, write to support@waxwing.email with your report number.

Anonymous setup counts

New installs of Waxwing count how far setup gets, so we can see where people get stuck. Setup counts are on by default and separate from usage sharing. Nothing carries an ID of any kind: not for you, your Mac or the install. The steps counted are:

the Welcome window is shown, and later closed (and on which step);
whether you choose to set up Waxwing or to explore with sample mail;
which Welcome steps you see, including Sign In;
that you open the Add Gmail or Add IMAP sheet, and whether it works. If it fails, we count the kind of problem (such as a wrong password or a server that can't be reached), never the message;
that you add an account, and whether it was Gmail or IMAP;
that you sign in to a Waxwing account, and where; if signing in doesn't finish, the kind of problem;
which AI choice you make (none, Apple, Claude or OpenAI);
that your mailbox finished its first sync;
that Waxwing is still in use after 1, 7 and 30 days.

Each count is sent once per install (failed account checks and sign-ins, at most 10), with no time finer than a day. Waxwing adds only its version and the macOS major version. The server stores daily totals by app version, macOS major version and country, which Vercel works out from your IP address. We never store the address. We keep the totals for 25 months. Only new installs are counted: if you updated from an earlier version, nothing is counted.

To turn it off, use the Turn Off link on the first Welcome page, or Settings → General → Privacy. Settings also lists everything that is counted.

Abuse protection

To stop abuse of problem reports, setup counts and Waxwing accounts (signing in, checking the account and signing out), the server briefly keeps a keyed hash of your IP address that changes every day. For sign-in codes, it keeps the same kind of hash of your account instead. We keep these rows for about 2 days and never store the address itself. Our host, Vercel, sees the address in order to deliver the request.

On this website

We count visits, clicks and downloads with Amplitude. Those events go through our own server: your browser never contacts Amplitude, the analytics store nothing in your browser (no cookies or local storage), and Amplitude receives your country but not your IP address. If you join the Windows waitlist, we keep your email and answers only to tell you when it's ready. You can create a Waxwing account here; what it holds is described under Your Waxwing account. Only the sign-in, sign-up and account pages load Clerk's sign-in script, which may set the cookies it needs to sign you in; the rest of the site doesn't load it. If you buy Pro, Stripe processes the payment, and we keep your email and plan to manage your licence.

Contact

Questions: support@waxwing.email. This page will be expanded into a full policy before paid plans launch.