Bantamware★Purveyors of featherweight software★Est. 2026
◂ Back to the card
Carrier app icon

★ Bout IV · new · beta ★

Carrier

Just an email program. Straight IMAP to your own inbox, with no vendor cloud in the middle and no Electron underneath. Your mail stays between you and your server.

Official weigh-in — Carrier v0.4.19
1030 KBOn disk
~55 MBIdle memory
NoneTelemetry
FreePrice

★ Scouting report ★

What it does

No calendar, no chat, no feeds, none of the stuff you never asked it to do. Sign in to Gmail in one click, or hand it iCloud or your own server — it talks straight to your inbox over IMAP, with no vendor cloud, no telemetry and no Electron. Messages open in a small native reader; the browser engine exists only when you explicitly ask for Rich view, and exits when you leave it. Attachments live in the message: photos preview, anything opens or saves, and a whole batch downloads at once. Send something you regret and Ctrl+Z takes it back. A dropped connection won’t lose your outgoing mail, drafts come back where you left them, and search reaches message bodies offline. And if you bring your own model — running locally or on your own key — it will filter the spam, tell you what’s still waiting on a reply, and let you just ask your mail questions. Nothing baked in, nothing phones home you didn’t point it at.

1030 KB · Windows
Carrier v0.4.19 · 64-bit Windows · signed · managed updates
0.7 MB · Android Download for Android
Carrier for Android v0.1.87 · Android 8+ · signed APK

★ The numbers ★

Carrier vs. the heavyweights

Carrier takes on two opponents at once — a typical Electron mail app and the new Outlook — on the numbers that decide a fight.

CarrierRed corner
Electron mail appBlue corner
New OutlookBlue corner
Weight on disk
1030 KBone .exe, no installer
150–200 MBinstaller + auto-updater
300 MB+Store install
Idle memory
~55 MBtens of MB at rest
400 MB–1 GBa Chromium per window
250–500 MB
Telemetry
Noneno analytics, ever
Usage analytics
Yes
Your mail routes through
Your server, directlyIMAP/SMTP over TLS
Server + vendor syncfor some features
Microsoft’s cloudnew Outlook proxies IMAP
Spam & phishing
Your own LLMopt-in; local or your key
Vendor filter
Cloud-side
Ask your mail
Your own modellocal, or your key
Vendor’s, if any
Copilot subscription
Price
Free
Freemium / subscription
M365 subscription
Carrier v0.4.19 — our numbers measured on an ordinary desktop; challenger figures are typical ranges. Your mail, your machine, nobody in the middle.