mailin comes in three tiers, and the honest answer to "which one do I need" depends less on what you want to spend than on how many emails you have and whether you need integrity features for legal or forensic work. This post lays out exactly what each tier includes at the App Store prices, who each one is for, and when a lifetime purchase works out cheaper than a subscription.
mailin pricing: the three tiers side by side
| Plan | Free | Personal | Professional |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly | $0 | $4.99 | $9.99 |
| Yearly | $0 | $44.99 (save 25%) | $79.99 (save 33%) |
| Lifetime (one-time) | $0 | $99.99 | $249.99 |
| Emails | Up to 500 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Import formats | All | All | All |
| Search and analytics | Basic search and filters; analytics | Advanced search and analytics; knowledge graph and entity resolution | Same as Personal |
| AI | On-device NLP (sentiment, topics); 3 AI assistant queries and 3 AI smart-filter queries | Unlimited AI; Apple Intelligence AI Assistant; daily AI digest; smart tagger | Everything in Personal plus predictive coding (TAR) |
| All export formats, S/MIME verification, deduplication | Not included | Included | Included, plus Bates numbering, Concordance export, Ed25519-signed exports and redaction |
| Offline Mode with tamper-evident audit log, chain of custody, custodians and legal holds, GDPR/DSAR report | Not included | Not included | Included |
| Priority support | Not included | Not included | Included |
Free: check whether it works for you
The free tier is a real working version, not a demo. It opens every format mailin supports, including .mbox, .pst, .nsf, .eml, .emlx and .msg, and gives you basic search and filters, headers and attachments, analytics, and on-device sentiment and topic analysis. You also get three AI assistant queries and three AI smart-filter queries to see what the on-device AI does, and there is sample data if you want to explore before touching your own mail. No account and no payment information are required.
The one hard limit is 500 emails. That is enough to check a suspicious message, inspect a small export, or confirm that your particular archive parses correctly before you commit. It is not enough for years of Gmail.
Personal: your own email, all of it
Personal removes the email cap and the AI cap. That means unlimited emails, unlimited AI, the Apple Intelligence AI Assistant on devices that support it, the daily AI digest, the smart tagger, advanced search and analytics, the knowledge graph with entity resolution, all export formats, S/MIME verification and deduplication.
This is the tier for someone leaving a job with a Takeout of their own mail, a household consolidating old accounts, or anyone who wants a searchable, private archive without handing it to a cloud service. The privacy model is the same across all tiers: everything on-device, no account, nothing uploaded. Apple Intelligence features need macOS 26 or iOS 26 or later on a supported device; elsewhere the NaturalLanguage engine takes over. As with any AI output, results can be inaccurate or incomplete and should be verified.
Professional: when the archive is evidence
Professional adds the features you need when someone else may later question how you handled the data. Offline Mode enforces a tamper-evident, HMAC-chained audit log across every action. Chain of custody covers acquiring, hashing, preserving and verifying. Bates numbering and Concordance export produce review sets, exports can be signed with Ed25519, and redaction, the GDPR/DSAR report, custodians and legal holds, and predictive coding (TAR) round it out. Built-in workflows can be cloned, renamed and reordered on this tier, and it includes priority support.
It is aimed at lawyers and paralegals, forensic analysts and investigators, and SOC teams who need a defensible record of what they did. These features are designed to support common records-integrity and eDiscovery workflows. Admissibility of digital evidence is jurisdiction-specific and depends on factors beyond any single software tool — consult qualified legal counsel for evidentiary use. mailin makes no warranty of fitness for any specific legal or regulatory purpose.
Subscription or lifetime: the arithmetic
The yearly plans are already discounted against monthly. Twelve months of Personal at $4.99 comes to $59.88; the yearly plan is $44.99. Twelve months of Professional at $9.99 comes to $119.88; the yearly plan is $79.99.
Lifetime is a one-time purchase that never renews. For Personal, $99.99 is more than two yearly renewals ($89.98) and less than three ($134.97), so if you expect to use mailin for three years or more, lifetime is the cheaper path. For Professional, $249.99 is more than three years at $79.99 ($239.97) and less than four ($319.96), so lifetime wins from the fourth year on. If you are unsure how long you will need it, a year is a low-risk way to find out, and the pricing section lists the current options.
Buying, sharing, cancelling and refunds
mailin is a Universal Purchase: buy once on the App Store and use it on Mac, iPhone and iPad under the same Apple ID. Restore Purchases brings a purchase back on a new device. Family Sharing is supported, so one purchase can cover the household. The Universal Purchase post covers the multi-device details.
Subscriptions auto-renew unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period, and you manage them through Apple, under System Settings, Apple ID, Subscriptions, rather than inside mailin. Refunds are also handled by Apple at reportaproblem.apple.com. Payment goes through Apple; the only network activity mailin makes in normal use is App Store purchase verification.
FAQ
Can I try mailin without entering payment details?
Yes. The free tier requires no account and no payment information, and includes sample data as well as support for your own files up to 500 emails.
Does lifetime ever renew or expire?
No. Lifetime is a one-time purchase that never renews. It is tied to your Apple ID and usable on multiple devices.
Which tier do I need to check a suspicious email?
Headers and attachments are included in the free tier, so opening a single message costs nothing. Larger archives need Personal for the unlimited email cap, and Professional if you need the audit log and signed exports for an incident record. See checking a suspicious email on your Mac for the steps.