Mailstrom vs. Clean Email: The Best Mailstrom Alternative Comparison

What Is Mailstrom App?

Mailstrom is an email management software that lets users apply bulk actions to any number of emails in their mailbox. This inbox cleaner identifies bundles of related mail, grouping all messages from the same senders together so you can act on them collectively instead of having to delete, move, or archive every email individually.

Additionally, the Mailstrom app lets users unsubscribe from mass mailings, block specific senders, establish automation rules, and receive email reports.

What Is Clean Email?

Clean Email is a Mailstrom alternative that offers many of the same features. Like the Mailstrom app, Clean Email lets you apply bulk actions to groups of messages. It can also identify related messages based on sender, subject, and other factors like messages with attachments or messages with the same type of content (i.e. social media notifications).

Furthermore, you can remove yourself from unwanted subscriptions and block emails from senders you don’t want to communicate with. You can create email automation rules, quickly clean out clutter, and more through the app. All in all, this email cleaner offers over a dozen inbox management features, making it one of the best Mailstrom alternatives.

Key Differences Between Mailstrom and Clean Email

On the surface, Mailstrom and Clean Email both appear to be very similar products. However, there are some key differences between the two apps when you take a closer look and compare them in-depth. In fact, there are notable distinctions in terms of the features each app offers.

Features

Mailstrom and Clean Email provide various mailbox management features, with some differences that may go unnoticed by users. However, as you'll see in our breakdown below, there are times when Clean Email offers much more.

Block & Unsubscribe

Even though your email service of choice most likely has a built-in spam protection mechanism, the chances are that you still receive spam messages from time to time. That’s because email spammers are getting more and more creative, constantly finding new ways how to circumvent spam filters. They are often willing to go as far as to send highly targeted emails that are virtually indistinguishable (at least from the point of view of spam filters) from legitimate emails.

Mailstrom comes equipped with a handy one-click Block function. By simply selecting an email and hitting Block, you can prevent future messages from undesired senders. You can also input a domain name into the search field, which selects all existing addresses from this domain in your mailbox, and blocks them all at once. However, this doesn't block future emails from new addresses within the same domain.

In Clean Email, you'll find a more robust blocking feature. The app allows you to block an entire domain, including all existing and future addresses from it. Plus, you can create a single rule to block multiple domains at once, a step up from blocking domains individually as in Mailstrom.

Of course, not all unwanted emails come uninvited. Online shopping often leads to subscriptions to numerous mailing lists, resulting in an overload of marketing emails. Mailstrom's Unsubscribe feature allows one-click unsubscribing from mailing lists, but only when an unsubscribe address is available. If such an address doesn't exist, the option to unsubscribe via the sender's website in a new tab is provided, putting the work back on you. It's important to note that Mailstrom only permits unsubscribing from one subscription at a time.

Compared to Mailstrom, the Clean Email’s Unsubscriber tool functions even when senders don't provide an unsubscribe option. The tool also allows users to move messages from specified senders to a Read Later folder or keep only the most recent message from a particular domain. Clean Email offers a subscription pausing feature, enabling users to temporarily halt emails from select senders. Additionally, it allows unsubscribing from multiple subscriptions at once, streamlining the process and saving time.

Message Filtering & Automation

If you are trying to quickly sort through dozens or hundreds of messages in your inbox, you need an inbox management app that can filter messages in multiple ways. You may want to do this by sender or subject, but you may also wish to filter messages on a more creative level like "financials" or "social media notifications."

Mailstrom's offerings are quite limited here. Within the Mailstrom app, you can filter messages by size, sender, subject, or date. Otherwise, the only options you have for pre-defined filters are "Shopping," "Social," and "Mailing lists," and "People I’ve emailed."

Also, Mailstrom doesn't offer much in the way of inbox automation. All you can do here is set up automations that move messages from specific senders into folders that aren't your inbox.

On the other hand, Clean Email organizes all emails into 33 different, easy-to-review smart bundles, called Smart Folders. These options include: "Seasonal sales," "Social notifications," "Finance and insurance," "Travel," "Entertainment," and much more! If you don't like how the Smart Folders sort things, that's okay, because you also have the option to filter messages by size, date, sender, read/unread status, starred/without star, and labels assigned.

Furthermore, Clean Email has the capability to automatically apply selected actions to all future messages, thereby streamlining your email management process. The operation is straightforward: select the message, click the Create Rule button in the blue action bar, then choose the action to be applied to future messages from that sender. Actions could include deleting, archiving, labeling, moving, marking as read or unread, adding or removing stars, or designating as spam. The app will seamlessly handle the rest for you.

Other Unique Features

While Clean Email and Mailstrom offer a range of impressive features, they cannot fully replace your chosen email client. Notably, Clean Email does not function as an email client in any capacity—it does not support writing or replying to messages. On the other hand, Mailstrom does provide an option to reply to emails directly within the app. However, the lack of a feature for composing new messages underscores that Mailstrom too cannot serve as a complete substitute for a comprehensive email client.

Mailstrom's unique features include Chill, which hides selected emails until a future date, and an efficient email forwarding functionality, optimizing the management of your inbox.

Inversely, Clean Email offers unique email management features that Mailstrom does not. For example, the Screener tool keeps emails from unknown senders out of your inbox and in a separate folder until you review them and decide to block or move to a folder. Also, the app offers Cleaning Suggestions, which are helpful hints based on past actions you’ve performed with messages.

Pricing

You can try Mailstrom for free to load up to 5,000 emails and remove 25% of them, but unlimited removal is available only if you purchase one of the three premium plans: Basic, Plus, and Pro. The Basic plan costs $9.00 per month ($59.95/year), and you can use it to manage one email account. The Plus plan costs $14.00 per month ($99.95/year), and you can use it to manage up to 3 accounts. Finally, the Pro plan costs $29.95 per month ($199.95/year), and you can use it to manage up to 20 accounts.

Opting for an annual subscription, Clean Email emerges as a more affordable Mailstrom alternative. You can choose from one of three plans, based on the number of accounts you wish to manage. For 1 account, you pay just $29.99 per year (or $9.99/month if you choose the monthly plan). For 5 accounts, you’ll pay $49.99 per year ($19.99/month). Finally, for 10 accounts, you pay just $99.99 per year ($29.99/month). All app’s plans include all features, and there are no additional fees or charges to worry about.

Platforms

Regarding platform compatibility, Clean Email clearly stands out as the more versatile option compared to Mailstrom. While Mailstrom is limited to web use, Clean Email extends its functionality across a range of operating systems, offering dedicated applications for web, macOS, iOS, and Android.

Mailstrom does offer an alternative for iOS users through Chuck, another product from the same company. However, this requires users to switch between different applications, depending on the device they are using. Clean Email's seamless multi-platform support offers a more streamlined and consistent user experience, irrespective of the device in use.

Discover Clean Email's edge as a versatile Chuck Email alternative.

Privacy

Based on its Privacy Policy, Mailstrom respects user privacy by only collecting necessary data to improve services and user experience. They don't use personally-identifying data for purposes outside service improvement, nor do they use user data for ads. They retain user data only for as long as needed, and respect users' GDPR rights, including rights to access, correct, or erase their personal data. Mailstrom also employs third parties in a limited, necessary capacity and doesn't share user data for direct marketing purposes.

Clean Email prioritizes security and privacy, ensuring it neither retains, sells, nor analyzes user data beyond what is strictly necessary for delivering its public features. It operates without advertising, fully funded by fair service charges, and it guarantees not to share, sell, or anonymize any user data. All access tokens and mailbox details are encrypted, ensuring they are only used for scanning your mailbox and executing selected actions, and they are inaccessible to anyone at Clean Email.