plainmail

Privacy policy

Last updated 2026-10-28

We store what we need to run your email and nothing more. We don't show ads, we don't track you around the web, and we don't sell your data.

Who we are

Plainmail runs this website and the Plainmail email service. For anything about your data, email support@plainmail.dev.

What we store

  • Your account. You sign in with GitHub. We receive your GitHub username and email address and use the email address as your account email.
  • Your domains and mailboxes. The domain names you add, the addresses you create, and the DNS records we set up for them. If you connect a DNS provider (Cloudflare, Vercel or Porkbun), we store its API token encrypted so we can write your mail records.
  • Your mail. The contents of your mailboxes, stored in the United States: on our servers (Hetzner, Ashburn, Virginia) and in Cloudflare R2 storage, with encrypted backups in Amazon S3 (Ohio).
  • Sending records. For outgoing mail we keep delivery, bounce and complaint events, including recipient addresses, so we can show your stats and prevent abuse.
  • Billing. Payments are handled by Stripe. We see your subscription status and billing details Stripe shares with us, never your full card number.
  • Support messages you send us.

What we don't do

  • No ads and no ad tracking.
  • No analytics or tracking scripts on this website.
  • We never sell or rent your data.
  • We don't read your mail. Incoming mail is scanned automatically for spam. A person looks at mailbox contents only if you ask us to for support, or if the law requires it.

Who processes data for us

  • Hetzner (Ashburn, Virginia, United States): mail servers.
  • Cloudflare: R2 storage for message files, and DNS.
  • Amazon Web Services (United States): Amazon SES sends your outgoing mail; Amazon S3 stores encrypted backups of your mail.
  • Stripe: payments.
  • GitHub: sign-in.
  • Neon: the database that holds account, domain and mailbox records.

Each one only gets the data it needs to do its job.

How long we keep it

We keep your data while your account is active. After your subscription ends, we delete your mailboxes and account data within 60 days, after warning you by email. Copies in our backups are deleted automatically up to 60 days after that. Billing records are kept as long as tax law requires.

Your choices

  • Your mail is always yours. You can copy it out at any time with any IMAP mail app.
  • You can ask us for a copy of your account data, to correct it, or to delete it, by emailing support@plainmail.dev.

Changes

If we change this policy in a way that matters, we'll email you before the change takes effect. The date at the top shows the latest version.