Privacy Policy

Effective 17 October 2026

Who is behind pidgoo

pidgoo is a free email app for Windows, Mac, iPhone and iPad made by an independent developer (publisher “mistak”). Contact: hello@pidgoo.com.

What data pidgoo handles and where

pidgoo works with the data you enter or that arrives in your mailboxes: email accounts and sign-in details, messages and attachments, contacts, calendars, tasks, signatures and settings. Everything is stored only on your device in an encrypted vault (AES-256). The vault key is protected by your operating system (Windows or macOS), by the Secure Enclave on iPhone and iPad, or by a password you set in pidgoo. The author of pidgoo has no access to this data and never receives it.

What pidgoo connects to

The app only connects where its features require it, always directly from your device:

• Your mail, calendar and contact servers (IMAP, SMTP, JMAP, CalDAV, CardDAV, Google Calendar) that you add yourself. Data is exchanged directly with them.
• Sign-in with Google or Microsoft – only if you choose it when adding an account. You sign in directly with Google or Microsoft; pidgoo never sees your password.
• Server settings lookup – when you add an account, pidgoo may look up the domain of your address (the part after @) in DNS and in the public autoconfig.thunderbird.net database. Only the domain is sent, never the full address or password.
• Updates – pidgoo is installed from the Microsoft Store and the Mac App Store, which also update it. An older version downloaded earlier from pidgoo.com checks for new versions on GitHub (github.com); only an ordinary file download request is sent.
• Encrypted email – only if you turn encryption on (Settings → Encryption; it is off after install). pidgoo then adds your public key to the messages you send (the Autocrypt standard) so recipients can write to you encrypted, and it stores the public keys of senders. Your secret key stays encrypted only on your device. A key backup file is created only when you ask for it, and you save it wherever you choose.
• Message translation – only if you enable it with your own Google Cloud key and click Translate. The text of the message being translated is then sent to Google Cloud Translation.
• Unsubscribe – when you click Unsubscribe, pidgoo sends an unsubscribe request to the address provided by the newsletter sender.
• Remote images in emails are blocked by default. If you allow them for a message, they are downloaded from the sender’s server, which may learn that you opened the message.
• Links (for example pidgoo.com or Ko-fi for voluntary support) open in your web browser.

pidgoo for iPhone and iPad

The iPhone and iPad app works the same way as the desktop app: your data is stored only on your device, encrypted with a key protected by the device’s Secure Enclave. Nothing is stored in iCloud and app data is excluded from device backups. The app connects directly from your device to the servers listed above. In addition:

• Notifications about new mail – iOS occasionally lets pidgoo check your inbox in the background, directly with your mail servers. Notifications are created on the device; no push server is involved.
• Transfer from a computer – if you scan the QR code shown by pidgoo on your computer, your settings are transferred once, encrypted, over your local Wi-Fi network only.
• Share → pidgoo – files, photos and links you share to pidgoo from other apps are handed over within your device only (encrypted) and deleted as soon as they are placed in a new email.
• Updates are provided by the App Store.

pidgoo for Android

The Android app works the same way: your data is stored only on your phone, encrypted with a key protected by the Android Keystore (in the phone’s secure hardware), and app data is excluded from device backups and from Google device-to-device transfer. The app connects directly from your phone to the servers listed above. In addition:

• Notifications about new mail – Android lets pidgoo check your inbox in the background roughly every 15 minutes, directly with your mail servers. No push server is involved.
• Google Calendar – you sign in to the calendar through Google Play services or directly on Google’s sign-in page; pidgoo never sees your password.
• Updates are provided by Google Play.

How we protect your data

• Encryption on your device – accounts, passwords, access tokens, calendars, contacts, tasks and stored messages are encrypted with AES-256-GCM. The key is protected by the operating system: the Secure Enclave and Keychain on iPhone and iPad, the Android Keystore on Android phones, and the system’s protected storage (Windows DPAPI, macOS Keychain) on computers. You can also lock pidgoo with your own password (the key is derived from it with scrypt on computers and PBKDF2 on phones), your fingerprint or Face ID.
• Encryption in transit – pidgoo connects to servers only over encrypted connections (TLS 1.2 or newer) with server certificate validation; unencrypted connections are refused.
• No server – pidgoo has no server of its own. Your email and Google user data never pass through the author of pidgoo or anyone else.
• Least privilege – from Google, pidgoo requests calendar access only; passwords and tokens never reach the app’s user-interface layer, and the Google Calendar token is only ever sent to Google (the Google Calendar API).
• No cloud backups – pidgoo data is not stored in iCloud, Google backups or any other cloud backup.
• Deletion and revocation – removing an account, disconnecting Google Calendar (Settings → Calendars) or choosing “Delete all pidgoo data” deletes the data from your device and also revokes pidgoo’s access at Google.

Google user data

If you connect Google Calendar, pidgoo requests access to Google Calendar (calendar.events, calendar.calendarlist.readonly) and to your account’s email address to show and edit your events. pidgoo uses this access only to provide the user-facing calendar features inside the app. pidgoo does not request access to your Gmail from Google – Gmail is connected to pidgoo with an app password, directly over IMAP and SMTP.

Google user data is processed and stored only on your device, encrypted. It is never sent to the author of pidgoo or to any server operated by pidgoo (there is none). It is not sold, not shared with or transferred to third parties, not used for advertising, and not used to develop, improve or train artificial intelligence or machine learning models. No human reads your Google data.

pidgoo’s use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

You can delete this data at any time by disconnecting Google Calendar (Settings → Calendars), removing the account in pidgoo (Settings → Accounts) or uninstalling the app, and you can revoke pidgoo’s access in your Google Account at myaccount.google.com/permissions.

What pidgoo does not do

• No analytics, telemetry, tracking code or advertising.
• It does not send your emails, contacts or other data to the author or any third party (other than the services listed above that you choose to use).
• It does not use artificial intelligence or use your data to train anything.

Retention and deletion

Data stays on your device until you remove it. Remove an account in Settings → Accounts; uninstalling the app also removes its data – automatically for the Microsoft Store version and after confirmation for the Windows version from the website. On a Mac, data stays in ~/Library/Application Support/pidgoo until you delete that folder. On iPhone and iPad, Settings → Delete all pidgoo data from this phone removes everything, including sign-in items in the iOS Keychain, and revokes pidgoo’s access at Google. Deleting the app removes its data too; iOS may keep sign-in items in the Keychain, which pidgoo deletes the next time it is installed. Mail on your servers is not affected.

The pidgoo.com website

The website uses no cookies or analytics and serves its fonts itself. The official Mac App Store and Microsoft Store badges load from Apple and Microsoft servers. It is hosted on GitHub Pages; GitHub may process access logs (such as IP addresses) for technical and security reasons. The chosen website language is remembered only by your browser.

Children

pidgoo is not directed at children, and the author does not knowingly collect any data from children – the app collects no data from anyone.

Changes

If this policy changes, the updated version will be published on this page with a new effective date.

Questions

Write to hello@pidgoo.com.