Email - which apps keep it private

Sharing your information and keeping private information or downloading your emails on a company's servers bothers a lot of users and rightfully so. Out of curiosity, I started checking some of the most popular email clients to see how they treat security and privacy and if they download your email.

I made this list of the results. It's not complete but it does include many of the most popular email clients. Hopefully this will be of some use to those who are concerned about how their email is routed and what is happening to their information.

The more stars a client is assigned, the more strikes against it. So one star is good, six stars is bad. The information in this report is a combination of information from the email client's websites, their privacy statements, and product reviews. Rankings may be, admittedly and necessarily, somewhat subjective but that was a minor factor. A sincere effort has been made to stick to the facts and just the facts and that is the real basis for the rankings.

Additions and corrections to the list are always welcome, of course. Please contribute any information to help make this complete and accurate.

Unfortunately, the results were very disappointing. Most of the clients failed to meet the very basic privacy requirements as defined for the purposes of this list. Which are simply:

1. A client is considered insecure if it does keep information about you on their servers and/or may share it for various purposes.
2. A client is considered insecure if email is downloaded to their servers.
3. A client is considered secure if it does not keep your email or information about you on their servers and/or share it.

Insecure email clients:
Boxer**
Inbox**
Gmail**
MailWise**
CloudMagic*****
TypeMail******
MyMail******
Microsoft Outlook******
BlueMail******
Mailbox*****
Alto******

Secure email clients:
AquaMail*
Nine*
Maildroid***

Status unknown:
K-9****
Touchdown****

* Has privacy statement, does not store or share information.
** Has privacy statement, does store and share information.
*** No privacy statement or could not find. Developer says no information is kept or shared.
**** No privacy statement or could not find.
***** Has privacy statement, does not share information. Does download email to their servers.
****** Has privacy statement, does share information. Does download email to their servers.

NOTE: Not all sites ranked '**' store passwords. Some do. However, if assigned a 2 star rank they admit they may share information for ads or other purposes. Read the privacy statements for details.

NOTE: Clients ranked '*****' (5 stars) or '******' (6 stars) download your email to a server for distribution, rather than the email client accessing and downloading your email directly to you from the mailserver. The email client server may be operated by another party under contract to the email client company. For example, TypeMail uses Amazon Web Services servers.
Any client that downloads your email to a server must be considered very questionable!

TEST SITE: Email Privacy Tester is a free and effective way to test your email client for privacy leaks and security bugs:
http://ift.tt/19IMjXx

NOTE: The AquaMail privacy policy statement linked below is not the usual boring legalese. Written in plain language, it's actually informative and interesting, and is the only one to mention any security testing.
AquaMail Privacy Policy
This is how it should be done! A must read!
http://ift.tt/1SLN1w2

Privacy Statements:

TypeMail: http://ift.tt/1llVURZ
MyMail: http://ift.tt/1llVV8d
CloudMagic: http://ift.tt/R0atr8
Mailwise: http://ift.tt/1SLMYQW
Outlook: http://ift.tt/1lCHJnr
Gmail: http://ift.tt/zGPTVo (generic Google)
Inbox: http://ift.tt/zGPTVo (generic Google)
Nine: No formal privacy statement, but taken from Play store description: "** Note: Nine is not cloud based. It stores your accounts’ passwords only on the actual device. It connects only to the actual mail servers. It stores your messages only on the device."
Mailbox (by Dropbox): http://ift.tt/1SLMZ7c
Boxer: http://ift.tt/1DrzTVY
BlueMail: http://ift.tt/1SLN1Mk
Maildroid: None found. Nice new website here: http://ift.tt/1llVT0l
Alto: http://ift.tt/1SLMZ7g

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Email - which apps keep it private