How Does Clean Email Make Money?
When evaluating any app's security, the first and most important question to ask is how the company generates revenue. This is especially true when dealing with free apps—after all, if you're not paying with money, you're likely paying with your data.
📌 Fortunately, Clean Email doesn't sell (or even keep) your data, and it also doesn't display ads. Instead, it charges a fair subscription price for unlimited use, with the free version being intended for evaluation purposes only.
As stated on the official website, "Clean Email is not sharing, and will never share, give away, sell, or 'anonymize' your data including your email address, email addresses found in your mailbox, or email content and attachments. That's our promise."
While some might point out that tech companies have broken similar promises before, Clean Email has a good reason to keep it: the strong stance on security and privacy is a major selling point that has been highlighted in countless reviews, such as this one from Forbes, which states that "Clean Email is safe and does not sell their user’s data."
Breaking the promise would likely drive away their core user base, which specifically chose the service for its privacy-first approach.
Can Clean Email Read My Emails?
When asking, "is the Clean Email app safe to use with my personal and work correspondence?" it's important to understand exactly how the service interacts with your messages. Clean Email offers many features to help users stay organized, including:
- Smart Folders: Automatically categorize messages for easier management.
- Auto Clean: Easy-to-create rules that can handle recurring inbox management tasks automatically.
- Unsubscriber: Lets you remove yourself from unwanted mailing lists with a simple click.
... and much more.
📌 Despite these comprehensive inbox management capabilities, the service doesn't read your message bodies or attachments.
This privacy-first approach hasn't changed since MarketWatch published their Clean Email review in 2018, which notes that "CleanEmail will allow users to mass-unsubscribe from lists and clean out their inbox without accessing personal data or storing information."
What If Someone Hacks Clean Email?
One look at the Wikipedia list of data breaches should be enough to tell you that hackers don't mess around, and this list doesn't even include the countless breaches that don't make headlines. So when asking, "Is Clean Email safe to use?" it's reasonable to consider what might happen in case of a security breach.
✅ Clean Email has implemented several layers of protection to address these concerns. As reported by Android Headlines, your content is protected using 128-bit encryption with Comodo certificate, "which is not exactly something every mail service offers." This enterprise-grade encryption guarantees that even if unauthorized access occurred, the data would remain unreadable.
✅ Additionally, Clean Email service maintains an active Vulnerability Disclosure Program to minimize the impact of any security flaws on users and combines it with regular security audits intended to reveal weaknesses long before cybercriminals notice them.
✅ One of Clean Email's regular security audits is intended to verify that the service complies with Gmail's strict privacy policies. Without it, Clean Email wouldn't be able to access the Gmail API (that's the reason why so many Clean Email alternatives don't support direct logins using the "log in with Gmail" option ).
✅ Taking privacy protection a step further, Clean Email automatically deletes all stored metadata after 45 days(remember that the service doesn't store mail bodies or attachments), so even this basic information doesn't remain on their servers indefinitely.
Do I Have to Give Clean Email the Password to My Inbox?
No, Clean Email doesn't require you to share your password, and this is another reason why Clean Email is a safe email cleaner to use. Instead, it uses modern security protocols to protect your credentials while still maintaining access to your inbox.
For Gmail users, Clean Email implements OAuth2, an industry-standard security protocol that lets you grant and revoke access to your mailbox without ever sharing your password. When you use OAuth2, all access tokens are encrypted and used solely for Clean Email's features.
The users of mail services that don't support OAuth2, such as iCloud Mail, can create an app-specific password just for Clean Email and, if needed, revoke it at any time without affecting the main account password. Both these approaches give you complete control over Clean Email's access to your inbox, and they also make it possible to monitor how the access is being used.
Does Clean Email Comply with Data Protection Regulations?
Data protection regulations like GDPR and CCPA are intended to make companies implement essential safeguards that protect your privacy rights.
⚠️ When you use a mail management service that doesn't comply with these regulations, you might not only compromise your own privacy but also risk non-compliance if you're using the service for business purposes.
📌 The good news is that Clean Email users don't risk anything because the service fully complies with both the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).
The GDPR and CCPA are among the world's strictest privacy laws, requiring companies to protect user data, be transparent about data collection and processing, and give users control over their personal information.
Clean Email's compliance with these regulations is among the reasons why Mac Sources considers it to be the best safe email cleaner for Mac. "Designed for users, packed with features, and super focused on privacy, it’s the perfect way to clean up your inbox and take charge. If you want an effective, safe, and reliable email tool, Clean Email is a great pick," states their review.
What Have Real Users Been Saying About Clean Email?
You should always take into consideration real user feedback since there's no shortage of developers making empty promises about their products' capabilities and security.
📌 Clean Email maintains an impressive 4.7 out of 5 rating on Trustpilot based on over 360 reviews, with 81% of users giving it a perfect 5-star rating.
The sentiment is similar on Product Hunt, where the service maintains a 4.5/5 rating. Users highlight both its security features and effectiveness, with one reviewer sharing how they "reduced my inbox from 30K unread emails to 5K."
The few negative user reviews published online revolve largely around Clean Email's subscription pricing. In many cases, users sign up for a paid subscription, forget to cancel, and then believe they were charged without permission. What's praiseworthy is that Clean Email consistently responds to these concerns with understanding and helpful solutions.
Verdict: Clean Email Is a Safe Inbox Organizer
As you can see, Clean Email is a safe inbox organizer that prioritizes user privacy and security. It does not sell or store your data, relying instead on a fair subscription model for revenue. The service only accesses message headers and metadata, not the content of your messages or attachments, and it complies with strict privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA. With 128-bit encryption, OAuth2 for secure access, and regular security audits, you can rest assured knowing the limited data it processes won't fall into the wrong hands.
