HACKER Q&A
📣 nend

Email client with an opt-in inbox?


I'm tired of a cluttered inbox, but also tired of:

- manually unsubscribing from newsletters I don't remember signing up for

- managing folders, tags, etc.

- allowing for-profit entities the power to divert my attention whenever they want

Are there any email clients with an opt-in inbox? Meaning all emails go to blocked/triage/queue unless I specifically approve them for my inbox, or similar. I want my life uncluttered, I want to be stingy with where I place my attention.

I remember vaguely hearing about this kind of email inbox over the years, but I wasn't able to find any existing providers when I went to search for one this morning. Is anyone using a system like this, any suggestions?

  👤 PaulHoule Accepted Answer ✓
I want one that bounces spam emails instead of just deleting them.

If people use a deliverability service they get punished worse for having a high bounce rate than they do for having a high complaint rate. I want to see more punishment.

👤 zzo38computer
What I do is I reject (with an error message) all messages not sent to an address in the /etc/aliases file. I will add a new alias for each correspondent. If there is spam (or otherwise too many undesired messages which cannot be removed), then I will delete the alias. Additionally, I do not have HTML email; it is purely plain text, and ASCII only (no Unicode). I use the "exim" email software on my computer to do this. This has worked; I only very very rarely receive any spam (less often than once a year).
👤 stop50
I have my own mailserver with sieve filtering. It would be possible to create that with sieve, but it requires constant updates to add an domain.
👤 mattl
hey.com -- it's not a client but it's a service that has the feature you want.