Superhuman-fast email, minus the $30/month and minus handing your inbox to someone else's cloud. Volt runs on your own machine, encrypts your data with a key only you hold, and never sends a single email without you clicking send.
Needs Docker installed and running. No Docker yet? Get it free.
Archive, reply, navigate threads, command palette, snippets. The entire inbox, zero mouse required.
Summarize, draft, and search in plain English. Your key, your provider, your inference cost. We never see it.
Your encryption key exists only in your head and briefly in server memory. Not in the database. Not in an env var. Not on disk, anywhere.
Point Claude Code or Cursor at your own running instance. Read, search, and draft. Sending stays a human clicking a button.
Every prompt Volt sends is a plain text file, loaded fresh at runtime. Open /prompts and read exactly what your provider receives.
Not deferred, not a setting to disable. Volt doesn't build open tracking into the product, full stop.
Your Gmail token and AI key are encrypted with AES-256-GCM. The key that decrypts them is derived from a passphrase only you know, using Argon2id, and it lives only in server memory while the process runs. Not in the database. Not in an env var. Not on disk, anywhere. Restart the server and it's gone until you unlock it again.
Read the full writeupSuperhuman, Gmail, and Hey are all excellent products. None of them let you run the whole thing yourself.
| Feature | Volt | Superhuman | Gmail | Hey |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Where your inbox actually runs | Your own server | Their cloud | Google's cloud | Their cloud |
| Open source | ✓ | — | — | — |
| Pricing | Free | $30/mo | Free (ads) / Workspace | $99/yr |
| AI cost model | BYO key, $0 markup | Bundled subscription | Bundled (Gemini) | Not offered |
| Encryption you can verify yourself | ✓ | — | — | — |
| Keyboard-first, zero mouse required | ✓ | ✓ | Basic shortcuts | Partial |
| Native MCP / AI agent integration | ✓ | — | — | — |
| Read receipts / open tracking | Never | On by default | No | No |
| Self-hostable | ✓ | — | — | — |
| Single-account, no vendor lock-in | ✓ | — | Tied to Google | Own email required |
Competitor details reflect public product positioning as of writing, verify against each vendor before quoting.
Volt ships a native MCP server. Point Claude Code or Cursor at your own running instance and ask it to triage, search, or draft in your real inbox, as part of a normal conversation.
No send_email tool exists in this codebase. On purpose.
One command if Docker's already installed. Full walkthrough, including your own Google OAuth client, in the docs.
curl -fsSL https://volt-xi-rust.vercel.app/install.sh | bash
Prefer to see every step yourself?
git clone https://github.com/Nishal77/volt && cd volt/deploy cp .env.example .env docker compose up --build