zora
Piotr Wittchen

I couldn't find an email app I liked.
So I made one.

I wanted a Mac email client that was fast, looked good, worked properly and had the features and settings I needed.
I never found all four in one app.

Piotr Wittchen · software engineer, creator of zora

I spend a lot of my day in email, so I care about the app I read it in. For years I kept switching. Every time, I'd find something new, enjoy it for a few weeks, and then hit the thing that made me leave.

Some apps were fast but looked like they were designed a decade ago. Some looked beautiful but were really a web page in a window, slow to start and heavy on the battery. Some got Gmail wrong and turned labels into folders. Some had every feature I could want, hidden behind so many settings that the app felt like work. And more and more of them wanted a monthly subscription, or my mail on their servers, or both.

Then I found Notion Mail, and for a while it was the one. It was calm, clean and quick to use, and it was the best email app I'd had so far. It didn't do everything the way I liked, but it came closer than anything else. Then Notion stopped developing it.

So I made my own: something like Notion Mail, with everything I liked about it kept and everything I didn't like fixed. When I wrote down what that meant, it turned out to be a short list.

What I was looking for.

Fast

Opens instantly, moves between conversations without spinners, and stays readable without a connection. zora caches mail on your Mac, so it reads from disk, not from the network.

Good-looking

Calm and at home on the Mac: system font, native window and menus, light and dark mode, and nine color themes, from Nord and Gruvbox to Rosé Pine.

Works properly

Gmail labels stay labels, nested ones included. Threads, drafts, spam and trash behave as they do in Gmail. iCloud, Fastmail and any IMAP account sit in the same window.

My way

The features I use every day, and settings for the things I have opinions about. Not a hundred switches, just the ones that matter.

The features I wanted.

Keyboard first

A command palette on ⌘K, plus J K to move, E to archive and R to reply. Every shortcut is also in the menu bar.

Search that finds it

⌘F with filters for sender, excluded words, dates and attachment size.

Several accounts

Gmail and IMAP accounts side by side, with server settings filled in for common providers.

A proper composer

Rich text, attachments, signatures, and recipient suggestions from the people you write to most.

AI, if you want it

Thread summaries, suggested replies and writing help with your own OpenAI, Anthropic or xAI key. Off by default.

Mail for your agents

An optional local MCP server lets Claude Code search, read and organize mail, and save drafts. It never sends.

The settings I wanted.

Small things, but they're the reason I kept leaving other apps.

How threads open

A side peek over the list, a centered view, or a bottom or right panel you can resize.

When it goes dark

Follow the system, stay light or dark, switch at sunrise and sunset, or at hours you pick.

When mail is read

Mark conversations read when you open them, or only when you say so.

Remote images

Blocked until you allow them, so senders can't track when you opened their mail. Or always load them.

How often to check

Every 1, 3, 5, 10 or 15 minutes, with macOS notifications and an unread badge on the Dock, or neither.

Your language

The whole app in English or Polish, picked in Settings → General.

Fair to say.

zora is the app I wanted. It may not be the app you want, and that's fine.

Mac only

I made it for the Mac. There's no iPhone, Windows or web version.

No Exchange yet

Gmail and IMAP only. Outlook and Microsoft 365 accounts can't connect yet.

No snooze or send later

Not yet. zora does fewer things than some apps, on purpose, and adds features slowly.

Made the way I'd want it made.

The things I didn't want from an email app are the things zora leaves out.

No subscription. A lifetime license for €99. Try every feature free for 14 days first, no account needed.

No server in between. zora talks straight to your mail provider. Nobody else receives your mail, including me.

No tracking. No analytics, no telemetry. Passwords and tokens stay in the macOS Keychain.

See what zora is

Maybe it's the one you were looking for, too.

Requires macOS 14 or later.

Download for Mac