Balsa
The facts below are what the maker publishes about Balsa, checked and dated. Our editors have not written about it yet.
The facts
Each one read from Balsa's own pages, with the date it was checked.
What it does
- Address books
- Optional integrations include read-only LDAP and limited CardDAV address book support.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Build and distribution
- The project describes building Balsa with Meson and Ninja and says Debian-like systems can create .deb packages with dpkg-buildpackage.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Credential storage
- When built with libsecret, it stores credentials through the desktop environment’s Secret Service; otherwise, credentials can be stored obfuscated in a config file, which the project says is not recommended.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Desktop requirements
- The project lists GTK 3.24 or later among Balsa’s build requirements.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Encryption
- It supports signing and encrypting messages with OpenPGP and S/MIME, using GpgME and suitable cryptographic backends.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Known limitation
- If mailbox dot locking is not possible because of file permissions, Balsa opens the mailbox read-only.checked 12 Oct 2026
- License
- The repository identifies the project license as GPL-2.0.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Local mailbox formats
- It supports local mailbox formats including mbox, maildir and MH.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Mail access
- It supports local mailboxes, POP3 and IMAP.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Mail features
- The project lists multithreaded message retrieval and sending, automatic mail checking, printing, and inline attachment viewing among its features.checked 5 Oct 2026
- Mail integration
- Balsa can be installed as the system mailto protocol handler.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Mail protocols
- Balsa supports IMAP, POP3, local mail folders, and sending through sendmail or direct SMTP.checked 5 Oct 2026
- Product
- Balsa is a graphical email client and part of the GNOME desktop environment.checked 5 Oct 2026
- Purpose
- Balsa is an e-mail reader and part of the GNOME desktop environment.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Recent release
- The project lists version 2.6.5, released 2025-04-12, with fixes and improvements including IMAP connection handling and attachment saving.checked 5 Oct 2026
- Security
- Balsa prefers TLS connections over STARTTLS and offers optional DKIM and DMARC checks.checked 5 Oct 2026
- Support
- The project directs users to report bugs through its GitLab issue tracker and says patches are welcome.checked 12 Oct 2026
Where it runs
- App coverage
- desktopchecked 21 Sep 2026
Alternatives to Balsa
- 1
Zoho Mail
Free planAndroidiOSWebAPI9.0Free plan - 2
Mailbutler Smart Assistant
Free planAndroidiOSWebExtension8.9Free plan - 3
Front
AndroidiOSWebAPI8.6From $25 a month - 4
Spike
Free planAndroidiOSWebmacOS8.5From $4 a month - 5
eM Client
Free planAndroidiOSmacOSWindows8.4From $39.95 a year - 6
Newton Mail
Free planAndroidiOSmacOSWindows8.4From $5 a month