Best Safe Cleanfox Alternative: Clean Email App

Why You Might Be Looking for a Cleanfox Alternative

Author's Note: This review is based on my hands-on experience with both Cleanfox and Clean Email. I’ve tested all features to provide an accurate, up-to-date analysis and screenshots as of November 2024.

Many users are on the lookout for a Cleanfox alternative due to concerns about privacy and data usage. While Cleanfox offers a free service to help declutter your inbox, it collects and uses anonymized user email data for market research purposes. This can be unsettling for those who value their privacy. Additionally, Cleanfox doesn't actually unsubscribe you from unwanted emails; instead, it moves them to the Trash, which can be a temporary fix rather than a permanent solution.

Why Clean Email is the Safer, Better Choice

Clean Email is a robust email management tool that goes beyond just unsubscribing from unwanted emails. Unlike Cleanfox, which only blocks emails temporarily, Clean Email ensures you are fully unsubscribed from mailing lists, so you won't receive emails from those senders again.

Here’s why Clean Email is a better choice than Cleanfox:

• Privacy Protection: Clean Email was created for people frustrated with Inbox clutter and concerned about their privacy in the first place. The service operates transparently with a straightforward pricing model. Clean Email is commercial software that doesn’t need to—and indeed doesn’t—collect or sell its customers’ personal (or aggregated, anonymized) data.
• Full Unsubscribe Process: What differentiates Clean Email is its robust unsubscription approach: the app sends requests, follows unsubscribe links, and even automates form completions for unsubscribing. This means you are genuinely removed from mailing lists, not just hiding emails in your Trash. ➡️ Try it for free

• Automated Sorting: Clean Email automatically categorizes your incoming emails into 33 Smart Folders, ensuring your inbox remains organized without any manual effort. ➡️ Try it for free

• Intuitive Cleaning Suggestions: Receive personalized cleaning suggestions to archive, delete, or unsubscribe from unwanted emails, keeping your inbox clutter-free and efficient. ➡️ Try it for free

• Setting Up Comprehensive Email Cleanup Rules: Create Auto Clean rules based on detailed criteria such as sender, message type, age, status, size, keywords, and more, allowing you to manage your emails effortlessly and maintain a tidy inbox. ➡️ Try it for free

• Anti-Distraction Mode: Utilize the Screener feature to filter out distracting emails, allowing only the most important messages to reach your primary inbox and enhance your productivity. ➡️ Try it for free

Cleanfox vs Clean Email: Feature Comparison

For those who value efficiency in email management and prioritize privacy, Clean Email emerges as the best Cleanfox alternative. While Cleanfox offers a playful approach by showing how much CO₂ you've saved, its core functionality is limited, and its privacy practices may be concerning.

When you unsubscribe with Cleanfox, future emails will be sent directly to Trash without actually unsubscribing you. Later, you can switch this off by accessing the Reverse action tab to bring any subscription back to your inbox.

Clean Email not only ensures you are fully unsubscribed from unwanted emails but also provides a comprehensive suite of tools to help you automate and customize your email management. With a strong emphasis on user privacy and data security, Clean Email is the clear choice for professionals who want both efficiency and peace of mind.

Is Cleanfox Safe?

Cleanfox, a product of Foxintelligence (acquired by NielsenIQ, a consumer intelligence company that provides insights into buying behavior), offers a free service that aims to simplify email management. However, the trade-off for this free service is significant. According to Cleanfox’s privacy policy, they extract transactional data from user mailboxes to establish statistical studies marketed to various economic operators.

This means that while you enjoy a cleaner mailbox, Cleanfox leverages your transactional data for economic gain. They claim they do not use data for advertising targeting, but the act of extracting user data for market research is commodifying user behavior.

❗Moreover, Cleanfox actively scans e-receipts that consumers receive from online purchases to extract data. This practice was in direct violation of the Gmail API policy implemented on June 26th, 2019. As a result, they can no longer log in to Gmail using regular email credentials but require app-specific passwords.

Is Clean Email Safe?

Yes, Clean Email was designed for those overwhelmed by inbox clutter and focused on protecting their privacy. The service operates transparently with a straightforward pricing model.

This application strictly avoids accessing the full content of emails, positioning it as the best Cleanfox alternative. Its algorithms assess only the envelope and header details of emails, which include the subject, sender, recipient details, dates, email size, and other related metadata. Clean Email ensures data analyzed is removed from its servers after a 45-day period, balancing convenience with security for users.

How to Delete a Cleanfox Account

To remove your account and all related information from Cleanfox:

1. Sign in to your Cleanfox profile.
2. Navigate to Settings, then choose your mailbox connected to Cleanfox.
3. Click Delete my mailbox. By doing so, your Cleanfox profile and all associated data will be removed.

Note: In Settings, I also found an option to opt out of the NielsenIQ panel. The app claims that disabling this toggle excludes your data from their reports, though this can’t be verified for certain.

Other Alternatives to Cleanfox

If you're considering other options besides Clean Email and Cleanfox, here are some alternatives:

1. Leave Me Alone: An email unsubscriber with a pay-per-unsubscribe model. Leave Me Alone emphasizes transparency and security. Sensitive data is encrypted, and no email content is stored on their servers.
2. Mailstrom: An email management service that allows bulk actions on your inbox. Mailstrom's privacy policy is user-centric, limiting the use of user data solely to enhance or provide available features in Mailstrom.
3. Unroll.Me: Both Cleanfox and Unroll.Me, owned by NielsenIQ, primarily assist users in managing email subscriptions by blocking them, rather than actually unsubscribing. However, Unroll.Me has faced criticism for selling user data and privacy concerns.
4. Sanebox: An email management tool that prioritizes user privacy by making sure emails don't leave your server and keeping all credentials safe. However, it doesn’t really unsubscribe; SaneBox's SaneBlackHole feature simply directs future emails from unwanted senders straight to the trash without removing you from the mailing list.