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Any mail account that speaks IMAP and SMTP, which is nearly all of them. The setup sheet has presets for Zimbra, Gmail, iCloud, and Outlook, and an IMAP choice that guesses the servers from your address; every field stays editable, and Test Connection checks the login before the account is added.

Choose Zimbra, type your address and password, and add. Postfach looks up the server from your domain's mail exchanger and uses the STARTTLS ports (143 and 587) Zimbra serves on. If your organisation runs Zimbra under another name, type that host into the IMAP and SMTP fields.

Gmail no longer accepts the account password from mail apps. Turn on 2-Step Verification in your Google Account, then create an app password at myaccount.google.com/apppasswords and enter that in Postfach's password field. The servers are filled in by the Gmail preset. Gmail's labels appear as folders; a message under two labels is shown once.

Type the address and choose Sign In with Microsoft: Outlook.com, Hotmail, Live, and MSN take no password from mail apps. IMAP also has to be switched on once at outlook.com, under Settings, Mail, Forwarding and IMAP. Step by step, with what to do when it does not connect or cannot send →

While Postfach is open it keeps a connection to your server and shows new mail at once. When the app is in the background, iOS decides when it may check: with Background App Refresh on for Postfach in the iPhone's Settings, that is a few times an hour to a few times a day, never in Low Power Mode. Instant delivery in the background would need a server of ours that holds your credentials and watches your mailbox, which Postfach does not have, on purpose. On the Mac, notifications are immediate as long as the app is running.

Notifications are asked for when an account that wants them is saved; each account has its own switch in Settings › Accounts.

A notification shows the sender, the subject, and the first lines of the message, and opens it. Postfach waits a few seconds and announces only mail that is still in the inbox and unread, so spam that your server's filter moves to Junk as it arrives stays quiet.

While Postfach is open it keeps a connection to each account's inbox and shows new mail there at once. The other folders are checked on an interval: Settings › General sets it for all accounts, and Check for mail in Settings › Accounts gives one account its own, from every minute to every hour. On the iPhone and the iPad, iOS decides when the app may check while it is in the background.

Every feature is yours for 60 days from the day you first got Postfach with your Apple Account. Settings › Postfach Pro shows the days left. When the trial ends, the app stops checking for and sending mail until Postfach Pro is bought; everything already on your device stays readable and searchable. Reinstalling does not restart the trial.

No. The purchase is tied to your Apple Account and covers the Mac, the iPhone, and the iPad. If one of them does not show Pro yet, open Settings › Postfach Pro and press Restore Purchases.

Purchases are made through the App Store, and Apple handles refunds: go to reportaproblem.apple.com, sign in, and choose the purchase. We cannot issue refunds ourselves.

As much as your mail, unless you choose otherwise: every message is kept in full to begin with, so a mailbox of 2 GB takes about 2 GB plus the search index. Settings › Storage shows the total and the share of each account, and has two rules for each. Keep attachments and pictures: all of them, those of the last months, those under a size, or none; a message keeps its text and is still found by a search, and what the rule does not keep stays on your mail server until you open it: an attachment left there shows a cloud and comes back with a click or a tap. Keep message text, for a limited time: headers and search stay, and an older message is fetched again when you open it. New mail follows the rules as it arrives, and Apply Now applies them to what is already on the device. Very large messages are skipped by the background download and fetched when opened; the limit is in Settings › General.

Images that a message loads from a sender's server tell the sender that you opened it, and when. Postfach blocks them until you press Load remote images on that message. The tracking pixels of known services, and invisible pictures, are taken out of a message before it is shown and stay out when you load its images; the message's header says how many. Settings › Privacy can load them always for an account, except in its Junk, and counts what was blocked. Scripts in messages are never run.

Two kinds, if you ask it to, both in Settings › Junk and both off until you turn them on. “Move messages with an emoji in the subject to Junk” moves new mail whose subject carries a picture emoji such as 🎉 or 📦 to Junk before any notification. Under Alphabets, tick the ones no one writes to you in, say Chinese and Japanese kana, and new mail whose subject is mostly in one of them goes the same way; in Taipei the tick may well be on Latin. Both look only at new unread mail arriving in the inbox, never at what is already there. A sender that Postfach Contacts, the app's own address book, trusts is spared once your mail server confirms the message came from them; a familiar name alone is not enough, since spam pretends to be someone you know. A message moved by mistake goes back with Not Junk, and is not moved again.

A read-only account is synced and searchable but never changed: no flags, moves, deletions, or sends reach the server. It is meant for an archive or a shared mailbox you want to read without the risk of touching it.

Yes: pause it. In Settings › Accounts, or on the account in the sidebar, with a right-click on the Mac and a long press on the iPhone and the iPad, Pause Account stops checking, notifications, and sending for that account and takes its count off the badge, until you resume it. Its mail stays readable and searchable, and what you do meanwhile (flag, move, delete, a reply) is applied when it resumes. The other accounts carry on.

Both, and you choose. A message goes out as text and HTML together by default, so every reader can show it; a reply carries the original as it was, tables and pictures included. The Format menu in the composer sends one message as plain text alone, and each account can make plain text its default in Settings › Accounts. Bold, italic, underline, and links are available while writing on macOS 26 and iOS 26.

Remove the account in Settings › Accounts to delete its messages, its search index, and its password from this device. Deleting the app removes everything it kept. Your mail on the server is not affected in either case.

Eddie, a small red cat, keeps the empty reading pane company on the Mac and the iPad while no message is open, and plays with a ball you can throw with the mouse or a finger. Eddie sleeps while Postfach is in the background and sits still when Reduce Motion is on. Settings › Appearance › Show Eddie the cat turns Eddie off.

Open Mail, choose Mail › Settings › General, and pick Postfach under Default email reader. A mailto: link on a web page or in a document then opens a new message in Postfach, from the account New Message writes from, with the address, the subject, and the text the link carries filled in. A link can fill in a message, never send one.

English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Japanese, following the device's language. System folders such as Inbox and Sent are named in your language whatever the server calls them.