Inbox Cockpit is a self-hosted application that runs entirely on your own server. Your data never leaves your infrastructure — there is no central cloud service or third-party analytics involved.
When you sync an email account, the following metadata is stored in your local MySQL database:
Full email bodies (HTML content) are fetched from the provider on demand when you open an email. Once fetched, the body is cached locally in the database for faster subsequent loads. If you prefer, you can periodically purge cached bodies via a database query without losing metadata.
Attachments are not downloaded or stored locally. When you click to view or download an attachment, it is fetched in real time from the email provider and streamed directly to your browser.
Depending on how you connect your email accounts:
When you trigger a sync (or the cron job runs), the application connects to your email provider using IMAP (for custom accounts) or the Gmail/Outlook REST API (for OAuth accounts). It fetches new message headers and metadata since the last sync. The connection is direct: your server talks to the provider, no intermediary.
When you compose or reply, the email is sent via SMTP (custom IMAP accounts) or the Gmail/Outlook Send API (OAuth accounts). The application acts as a client to your existing email infrastructure — it does not relay through any third-party service.
You can optionally enable "Also delete from provider" in Settings. When enabled, deleting an email in Inbox Cockpit will also move it to Trash on the provider (Gmail, Outlook, or IMAP). When disabled (the default), deletions only affect the local database.
config.php.bcrypt and never stored in plaintext.When you disconnect an email account from Settings, all locally stored emails, metadata, and cached bodies associated with that account are permanently deleted from the database. Encrypted credentials are also removed.
Deleting your user account will cascade-delete all associated data: folders, emails, email accounts, credentials, and workflow states. This action is irreversible.
Since the application is self-hosted, you have full control over the MySQL database. You can drop tables, truncate data, or delete the entire database at any time. The application has no remote backup or cloud sync — once data is deleted from your server, it's gone.