Features

Your inbox, organized

  • Multiple accounts — add all your email accounts and manage them from one app
  • Unified inbox — see messages from every account in one view, or focus on one account at a time
  • Conversations — related messages are grouped by thread ID and message headers
  • Folders — inbox, sent, drafts, archive, trash, and any custom folders — Sparrow auto-detects special folders
  • Snooze — temporarily hide a message and have it reappear later. Presets: 1 hour, 3 hours, tomorrow at 8:00, next Monday at 8:00, or pick a custom date and time

Writing emails

  • Rich text — format your messages with bold, italic, links, and more
  • Templates — save email templates with a pre-filled subject and body (plain text or HTML). Templates can be global or per-account
  • Drafts — your work is automatically saved as you type, synced to your IMAP Drafts folder
  • Attachments — drag and drop files to attach them, with automatic MIME type detection

Finding things

Sparrow's search is fast and powerful — powered by a local Tantivy full-text index:

  • Instant results — find messages in milliseconds, not seconds
  • Search everywhere — subject lines, message body, sender/recipient names and addresses
  • Advanced filters — narrow by date range, attachments, read/unread, starred, or specific account
  • Works offline — the entire search index lives on your computer

See Search for the full query syntax.

Keeping your mail private

  • Built-in encryption — send and receive encrypted emails (PGP and S/MIME) without installing plugins
  • No tracking — Sparrow doesn't collect any usage data or analytics
  • Image blocking — remote images (often used for tracking) are blocked by default
  • Secure connections — all communication with email servers uses TLS encryption

See Encryption for details on PGP and S/MIME.

Automating the routine

Set up rules to handle incoming mail automatically. Each rule has conditions and actions:

Conditions — match on From, To, Subject, or Body using:

  • Contains, Equals, Starts with, Ends with, or Regex

Actions:

  • Move to a folder
  • Apply a label
  • Mark as read
  • Star the message
  • Delete
  • Set contact priority (Normal, VIP, or Low)

Rules can be global or per-account, and you can set a "stop processing" flag to prevent later rules from firing. Rules are evaluated in your chosen order.

Contacts and VIP

  • Contact book — Sparrow maintains contacts with name, email, and avatar
  • VIP contacts — mark important people as VIP to get priority treatment
  • VIP-only notifications — limit desktop notifications to VIP senders only
  • Autocomplete — start typing a name or email in the compose window and Sparrow suggests matches
  • Avatars — from your contacts, Gravatar, BIMI, or auto-generated initials

Statistics

Sparrow includes a built-in stats dashboard:

  • Overview — total messages, storage used, attachment count and size
  • Top senders — who emails you the most, sorted by count or size
  • Top domains — which domains dominate your inbox
  • Volume over time — inbox/sent/other counts by day, week, or month (3m, 6m, 12m, all time)
  • Size distribution — how many emails fall in each size bracket
  • Attachment types — breakdown by category (images, PDFs, archives, documents, etc.)
  • Largest messages and attachments — find what's taking up space

All stats are computed locally from your database — nothing is sent anywhere.

Keyboard shortcuts

Navigate Sparrow without touching the mouse:

KeyAction
j / ↓Next email
k / ↑Previous email
c or nCompose new email
rReply
aReply all
fForward
sToggle star
/Focus search
DeleteMove to trash
?Show shortcut help
EscapeBack / close / clear search

Shortcuts are disabled when you're typing in a text field.

Desktop integration

  • System tray — Sparrow sits quietly in your taskbar
  • Notifications — get alerted when new mail arrives (optionally VIP only)
  • Start on login — Sparrow opens automatically when you turn on your computer
  • Close to tray — close the window without quitting

Customization

  • 8 color themes — Ocean, Sparrow, Forest, Lavender, Sunset, Rose, Slate, Midnight
  • Light / Dark / System — choose a mode or follow your OS setting
  • Language — English, Polish, German, French, Spanish, Italian