mailprune

Email triage TUI. Stacks your inbox by sender so you can trash, archive, mark-read, or unsubscribe from hundreds of emails in a few keystrokes. Built for fast inbox-zero over Gmail IMAP, multi-account.

 mailprune  personal  work
┌ stacks (42) · 873 msgs · by sender · sort read rate · 2 marked ─┐┌ DoorDash <[email protected]> · unsub: one-click POST ┐
│▌ 214   0% U DoorDash (12 new)                                   ││ 2026-06-09 ● Your order is on the way                     │
│▌ 120   2% U Medium Daily Digest                                 ││ 2026-06-08   Craving something new?                       │
│   76  31% U LinkedIn                                            ││ 2026-06-07   Weekend deals near you                       │
│   31  94%   GitHub                                              ││ ...                                                       │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
 j/k · Enter expand · Space mark · a mark all · d trash · e archive · r read · u unsub · s group · o sort · / filter · Tab acct · q quit

Install

macOS and Linux (prebuilt binaries via Homebrew):

brew install niraj8/tap/mailprune

Or grab a tarball from releases (macOS arm64/x86_64, Linux x86_64), or build from source:

make install   # cargo build --release && cp to ~/bin

Passwords are stored in the platform keychain: macOS Keychain, Secret Service (GNOME Keyring/KWallet) on Linux, Credential Manager on Windows (compiles, untested). No keyring daemon? Use the MAILPRUNE_PASSWORD_<EMAIL_WITH_UNDERSCORES> env var instead.

Setup

1. Enable 2FA on each Google account, then generate an app password at https://myaccount.google.com/apppasswords (also requires IMAP enabled in Gmail Settings → Forwarding and POP/IMAP).

2. Config — create ~/.config/mailprune/config.toml:

   [[accounts]]
   name = "personal"
   email = "[email protected]"
   
   [[accounts]]
   name = "work"
   email = "[email protected]"

3. Store app passwords (saved in the macOS Keychain):

   mailprune auth [email protected]

4. Run: mailprune (TUI) or mailprune stacks (headless dump of all accounts).

Keys

key	action
j / k	move selection
Enter / Esc	expand / collapse stack
d	trash entire stack (moves to Gmail Trash — recoverable 30 days)
e	archive stack (moves to All Mail)
r	mark stack read
u	unsubscribe — RFC 8058 one-click POST → mailto via SMTP → browser fallback; then offers to trash the stack
Space	mark stack for bulk action (auto-advances; d/e/r/u then apply to all marked)
a	mark all visible stacks (again to clear)
s	toggle grouping: sender ↔ sender+subject
o	toggle sort: count ↔ read rate (least-read first — your dead newsletters)
/	filter stacks by sender
Tab	next account
R	refresh
g / G	top / bottom
q	quit

The kill-loop

The fastest way to inbox zero:

1. o — sort by read rate. Stacks you never open float to the top.
2. Space down the list to mark the dead newsletters (auto-advances).
3. u — bulk unsubscribe everything marked, one confirm.
4. y again at the "also trash?" prompt.
5. s to regroup by sender+subject and repeat for noisy notification types from senders you otherwise keep.

Notes

• Each stack shows a read-rate % (share of its messages you've opened), red when ≈0 — a 0% stack with 100 messages is a newsletter you should unsubscribe from. Based on messages currently in INBOX only.
• Delete is always move-to-Trash, never permanent — Gmail keeps trash 30 days. That's the undo story.
• Unsubscribe priority: List-Unsubscribe-Post one-click (silent HTTP POST) → mailto: (sends an email via SMTP with your app password) → opening the https link in your browser.
• Passwords live in the Keychain under service mailprune. Env override: MAILPRUNE_PASSWORD_<EMAIL_WITH_UNDERSCORES>.