Philosophy & Positioning

Mailpilot is an open-source, self-hosted email processing daemon that uses AI to automatically organize and manage your inbox.

Core Principles

1. Privacy First

Your email stays on your server.

All processing happens locally on your infrastructure
No email content is sent to third-party services (except your chosen LLM provider)
Full control over data retention and audit logs
IMAP credentials never leave your server

Unlike cloud email services, Mailpilot operates as a self-hosted daemon that connects directly to your email provider using standard IMAP.

2. LLM-Powered Intelligence

Modern AI, not rule-based filters.

Traditional email filters use rigid rules:

If sender = "newsletter@example.com" then move to "Newsletters"

Mailpilot uses Large Language Models to understand context:

"This is a promotional email from a SaaS vendor offering a discount.
File under Marketing/SaaS Offers for review later."

The LLM considers:

Sender reputation and patterns
Email content and intent
Urgency and importance signals
Your custom classification preferences

3. Open Source

Transparent, auditable, extensible.

Mailpilot is MIT-licensed open-source software:

No vendor lock-in: Host it anywhere
Full transparency: Audit the code yourself
Community-driven: Contributions welcome
No usage limits: Process unlimited emails

The codebase is designed for:

Easy self-hosting (Docker, systemd, or bare metal)
Clear documentation
Minimal dependencies
Production-ready stability

4. Local or API LLMs

Choose your AI provider.

Mailpilot supports both cloud APIs and local models:

Cloud APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic, OpenRouter):

State-of-the-art performance
Pay per token
Fast classification
No local GPU required

Local Models (Ollama, llama.cpp):

Complete privacy - no external API calls
One-time cost (hardware)
Unlimited processing
Requires GPU for best performance

Mix and match providers per account or folder.

Design Philosophy

Daemon, Not SaaS

Mailpilot is a background daemon, not a web application:

Runs continuously in the background
Watches IMAP folders for new emails
Processes automatically without user interaction
Web dashboard for monitoring only (optional)

This design prioritizes:

Reliability: No internet connection to a SaaS platform required
Performance: Local processing, minimal latency
Privacy: All data stays on your infrastructure

Configuration Over UI

Mailpilot uses YAML configuration with an optional UI:

accounts:
  - name: personal
    folders:
      - name: INBOX
        prompt: |
          Classify personal email intelligently...

Why YAML?

Version control friendly (git diff, rollback)
Programmatically editable (CI/CD, templating)
Explicit and auditable
Portable across environments

The web dashboard provides a visual configuration editor for those who prefer GUIs, but the source of truth is always the YAML file.

Prompts Are First-Class

You control the classification logic.

Mailpilot doesn't impose a classification scheme. Instead, you write prompts that teach the LLM your preferences:

prompt: |
  VIP senders (always flag and keep in INBOX):
  - boss@company.com
  - ceo@company.com

  Rules:
  - GitHub notifications: move to "GitHub/{repo}"
  - Marketing emails: move to "Newsletters"
  - Meeting invites: keep in INBOX