Run your own portable mail server from one USB stick and carry your personal mailbox on another. MailStick combines encrypted storage, Tor, local mail tools, and optional end-to-end encryption into one portable email environment.
Traditional email normally means keeping your mailbox on infrastructure operated by an email provider. MailStick changes that model. Your mail server runs from your own Server MailStick, while your personal email environment and long-term archive stay on your own User MailStick. You control both sides.
The MailStick server runs from your own USB stick. Its mail services, configuration, Tor identity, accounts, and server data remain on hardware you physically control instead of a mailbox hosted permanently by Gmail, Outlook, Proton, Yahoo, or MailStick.
Your User MailStick contains your private mail environment, account configuration, keys, and encrypted archive. Plug it into a compatible computer, boot MailStick, and your email environment comes with you.
The server can hold incoming mail until your User MailStick connects and retrieves it. Once successfully retrieved, the server copy can be removed. Mail you choose to preserve can be moved into the encrypted archive on your own stick.
MailStick uses Tor onion services for communication between MailStick systems. This helps conceal the real network location of the mail server and avoids exposing it directly to the public internet.
MailStick combines encrypted USB storage, Tor transport, optional OpenPGP end-to-end encryption, and an additional encryption layer for messages temporarily handled by the optional MailStick Relay service.
MailStick is built on open-source software including Debian, Tor, Thunderbird, Dovecot, Postfix, and YunoHost. Its setup and configuration can be inspected and independently reviewed.
The basic idea is simple: one stick provides the server, another carries the user’s private mailbox.
Your Server MailStick runs the mail services and Tor onion identity. Incoming messages are received by infrastructure that you control.
When your User MailStick comes online, it connects through Tor and retrieves waiting mail from your own server.
Temporary mail can remain volatile, while messages you want to preserve can be moved into the encrypted archive on your own USB storage.
MailStick does not depend on a single security mechanism.
Encrypted USB storage
Mail and other persistent private data that you choose to keep can
remain inside encrypted storage on your own MailStick.
Tor onion communication
MailStick systems communicate through Tor rather than exposing the
server directly through an ordinary public IP address.
OpenPGP when you want end-to-end encryption
Compatible mail clients such as Thunderbird can encrypt the actual
message for the intended recipient.
Additional Relay encryption
If the optional always-online MailStick Relay is used, the
MailStick helper encrypts the complete message before it is
temporarily stored by the relay. The relay stores ciphertext, not
the readable message.
MailStick can optionally use an always-online Relay service. Its purpose is not to become your permanent mailbox. It temporarily holds encrypted messages when the normal MailStick path is unavailable and delivers them when the recipient MailStick comes online. The readable mail remains under the control of the MailStick endpoints.
Anyone who wants more direct control over private email.
Privacy-conscious users who do not want their permanent mailbox hosted by a conventional email provider.
Journalists and researchers who want a portable, isolated environment for sensitive communication.
Organizations and teams that want to operate their own private mail infrastructure.
Travelers and remote workers who want to carry the same private mail environment between computers.
MailStick is designed to move control of private email away from the provider and back to the person using it.
