Support

General

What is Email Slayer?

Email Slayer is a privacy-first desktop app that analyzes your Gmail inbox to show you who sends you the most email. It helps you understand your inbox patterns, block unwanted senders, and bulk-delete emails you don't need.

All processing happens locally on your computer — no email data is ever sent to any external server.

What platforms are supported?

macOS (Intel and Apple Silicon). Windows and Linux builds are in private testing — email support@emailslayer.com to be notified when they're available.

Does Email Slayer read my emails?

No. Email Slayer only reads email metadata (sender, date, subject, size). It never accesses the actual email body content or attachments.

See our Privacy Policy for full details.

Troubleshooting

I can't log in / OAuth error

Common causes:

  • "Unverified app" warning — Click "Advanced" then "Go to Email Slayer (unsafe)" to proceed. This appears because the app uses sensitive Gmail scopes.
  • Browser blocks popup — Email Slayer opens your default browser for login. Ensure popups aren't blocked.
  • Wrong Google account — The browser may auto-select an account. Use an incognito window to choose the correct account.
  • Firewall blocking localhost — Email Slayer uses a local server (127.0.0.1) for the OAuth callback. Ensure your firewall allows this.

Still stuck? Export diagnostics from Settings and email them to support@emailslayer.com.

Scan is very slow

Large inboxes take a while to scan. At roughly 30 messages per second, a 100,000-email inbox takes about an hour. Email Slayer is deliberately paced to stay safely under Gmail's API quota and avoid triggering rate limits.

A few things that help:

  • Leave it running in the background. Scans are checkpointed every 1,000 messages, so you can minimise the window and carry on with other work.
  • Pause and resume any time. If you need to close the app or reboot, open History when you come back and click Resume — it picks up exactly where it left off.
  • A faster network doesn't help much. The bottleneck is Gmail's API, not your connection.
Linux: AppImage won't start (chrome-sandbox / SUID error)

If running ./EmailSlayer.AppImage on Ubuntu 23.10 or later (including Ubuntu 24) exits with an error mentioning chrome-sandbox or setuid_sandbox_host.cc, this is a system-level AppArmor restriction on unprivileged user namespaces. It affects every Electron AppImage on those releases, not just Email Slayer.

Recommended: install the .deb instead. The deb's installer sets up the Chromium sandbox correctly, so the app starts with no extra steps.

If you need to keep using the AppImage, you can launch it with ./EmailSlayer.AppImage --no-sandbox. This works around the issue but disables Chromium's sandbox — a meaningful security trade-off, so we recommend the .deb where possible.

App crashes or freezes
  1. Check for updates — Settings → Check for Updates
  2. Export diagnostics — Settings → Diagnostics → Export diagnostics. This produces a ZIP file with logs and environment info.
  3. Report the issue — Email the ZIP to support@emailslayer.com

Diagnostics include logs and environment info but never include email content or personal data.

How do I check for updates?
  1. Open Settings
  2. Click Check for Updates
  3. If an update is available, click Download from website — this opens the Email Slayer download page in your browser
  4. Download and install the new version over the existing one

Auto-updates are disabled in development builds.

Data & privacy

Where is my data stored?

All data is stored locally on your device:

  • macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Email Slayer/
  • Windows: %APPDATA%\Email Slayer\
  • Linux: ~/.config/Email Slayer/
How do I delete all my data?

Full reset (recommended): Go to Settings → Data management and click Reset everything. This deletes all scan data, signs you out, and restores default settings — the app restarts as if freshly installed.

Log out only: Use the Log out button at the bottom of the sidebar. This removes your Google connection but keeps your scan history and results on disk.

Manual deletion: Quit the app and delete the data folder listed above.

Revoke Google access: Go to Google Account Permissions, find "Email Slayer", and click "Remove Access".

Can I resume a stopped scan?

Yes. Scans are checkpointed every 1,000 messages. If the app closes or you stop the scan, go to Scan or History and click Resume.

Reporting a security issue

If you believe you've found a security vulnerability in Email Slayer, please report it to us privately rather than filing a public support request. We take security reports seriously and appreciate responsible disclosure.

Email: support@emailslayer.com with [SECURITY] in the subject line.

Please include:

What to expect:

In scope: OAuth token handling, local credential storage, IPC between main and renderer processes, auto-update integrity, injection / path-traversal / SSRF issues affecting the local application.

Out of scope: issues requiring physical access to an unlocked device, social-engineering of users, theoretical vulnerabilities without a working proof-of-concept, and issues in third-party dependencies that should be reported upstream.

Contact

Can't find what you're looking for?