Use Scroogle Mail with Apple Mail, Outlook or Thunderbird

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Why you need Scroogle Bridge

Your Scroogle Mail mailbox is stored zero-access encrypted: the keys are derived from your password on your own device, and we never hold them. That is the feature you're paying for - and it has one honest consequence. If Apple Mail opened a normal IMAP connection straight to our servers, all it would ever download is ciphertext, because our servers cannot decrypt your mail for it. Nobody's servers should be able to. See the full security model if you want the details.

Scroogle Bridge is our answer. It's a small desktop app for macOS 12 or later, Windows 10 or later, and Linux (deb, rpm and AppImage builds), included in the Plus and Family plans. Bridge signs in to your account, syncs your mailbox, decrypts it locally on your machine, and then presents a completely standard IMAP and SMTP interface to your mail client - on 127.0.0.1, your own computer's loopback address. Your client thinks it's talking to an ordinary mail server. It is: one that happens to live three centimetres away, inside your machine.

Traffic between Bridge and our servers stays fully encrypted end to end; plaintext only ever exists on your own machine, between Bridge and your client. Closing your mail client doesn't stop Bridge - it sits quietly in your menu bar or system tray and keeps syncing.

On the Essential plan, Bridge isn't included - you use our webmail and mobile apps instead, which do the same decryption themselves. If you live in a desktop client, that's the main reason to upgrade to Plus.

The settings

Every client below uses the same values. If your client isn't listed, these are all you need:

App passwords

Bridge generates a separate password for each mail client you connect. Open the Bridge window and go to Bridge > Accounts > your address > App passwords, click Generate, give it a name you'll recognise ("Apple Mail on the iMac"), and paste the result into your client's password field.

• One password per client. Laptop Thunderbird and desktop Outlook each get their own.
• Revoke any one without touching the others. Selling the old laptop? Revoke its password in the same panel and every other client keeps working.
• Your real account password is never typed into a mail client. App passwords only work locally, against Bridge, on the machine where Bridge generated them - they are useless to anyone who intercepts one, and they can't be used to sign in to your account.

Set up Apple Mail macOS

1. Open Scroogle Bridge and sign in. Wait until your address shows a green Connected dot and the first sync has started.
2. In Bridge, go to Accounts > your address > App passwords, generate one named "Apple Mail" and copy it.
3. In Apple Mail, choose Mail > Add Account, select Other Mail Account, then click Continue.
4. Enter your name, your full Scroogle Mail address, and paste the app password. Click Sign In. Mail will complain it is "Unable to verify account name or password" - expected, because it's looking for a server on the internet. In the fields that appear, set both Incoming Mail Server and Outgoing Mail Server to 127.0.0.1, account type IMAP, and click Sign In again.
5. Once the account is created, open Mail > Settings > Accounts > your account > Server Settings. Untick Automatically manage connection settings for both servers, set the IMAP port to 1143 and the SMTP port to 1025, leave Use TLS/SSL ticked and authentication on Password, then click Save.
6. If macOS asks about the server's certificate, that's Bridge's local certificate - click Trust. See troubleshooting for why this is fine on 127.0.0.1 and only there.
7. Send yourself a test message. It should land back in your inbox within a few seconds, with the padlock intact.

Set up Outlook Windows

These steps are for classic Outlook (Microsoft 365 or Outlook 2019 and later). The "new" Outlook for Windows syncs IMAP accounts through Microsoft's cloud, which rather defeats the object of zero-access email - if you're on new Outlook, we'd honestly suggest Thunderbird instead.

1. Make sure Scroogle Bridge is running and your address shows the green Connected dot. Generate an app password named "Outlook" under Bridge > Accounts > your address > App passwords.
2. In Outlook, choose File > Add Account.
3. Type your full Scroogle Mail address, open Advanced options, tick Let me set up my account manually, then click Connect.
4. Choose IMAP as the account type.
5. Incoming mail: server 127.0.0.1, port 1143, encryption method STARTTLS. Outgoing mail: server 127.0.0.1, port 1025, encryption method STARTTLS. Click Next.
6. Paste the app password when prompted and click Connect. If Windows shows a certificate notice, that's Bridge's local certificate - accept it.
7. Click Done, then send yourself a test message to confirm both directions work.

Set up Thunderbird macOS / Windows / Linux

1. Make sure Scroogle Bridge is running with the green Connected dot, and generate an app password named "Thunderbird".
2. In Thunderbird, open the menu and choose Account Settings > Account Actions > Add Mail Account (on a fresh install, the account setup screen appears by itself).
3. Enter your name, your full Scroogle Mail address and the app password, then click Configure manually - don't let autodiscovery guess, it will go looking on the internet.
4. Incoming server: protocol IMAP, hostname 127.0.0.1, port 1143, connection security STARTTLS, authentication Normal password, username your full address.
5. Outgoing server: hostname 127.0.0.1, port 1025, connection security STARTTLS, authentication Normal password, same username.
6. Click Re-test, then Done. When Thunderbird shows a security exception dialog for the local certificate, tick Permanently store this exception and confirm - it applies to 127.0.0.1 only.
7. Send yourself a test message and watch it arrive in the same window.

Troubleshooting