Why privacy tools shouldn't need your password: building a local-first email analyzer

Description and use

Paperweight is a local-first desktop app that scans and cleans email inboxes without sending data to external servers, enhancing privacy and GDPR compliance.

Problem

Inbox cleanup services often require full cloud access, exposing user emails and personal data to third parties.

Outcome

Paperweight eliminates the need to share email data with external servers, reducing privacy risks while enabling effective inbox cleanup and GDPR compliance.

Workflow

• Install Paperweight desktop app
• Connect email account via IMAP or OAuth
• App scans inbox locally and indexes metadata in SQLite
• Classification engine applies regex and phrase lexicons to identify newsletters, receipts, and unsubscribe links
• User reviews classified emails and bulk unsubscribes or requests GDPR deletions
• All data remains on local device

Evidence

All processing happens directly on your machine. No emails or personal data ever touch external servers.

Source

The entire codebase is 100% MIT-licensed on GitHub, where it recently passed 300 stars.

Source