DEV Community: Eppie

Eppie, a new open-source cross-platform email client, on Snap Store🐧

Eppie — Thu, 30 Oct 2025 12:55:00 +0000

Hey Linux users!

Good news: Eppie is now on Snap Store!

In case you aren’t yet introduced, Eppie is a new multiplatform email client. It works with all major email providers like Gmail or Microsoft Outlook, supports PGP encryption out of the box, and it is the only native desktop email client capable of authenticating at Proton Mail servers – the biggest title on privacy-first email market.

So currently Eppie is mostly a traditional email client with privacy features. But there's a twist.

The ultimate goal of this project is to build the next generation providerless p2p email, where addresses, accounts and data belong to users. It will be built a little but like torrent, or cryptocurrency network if you will: the data is broken to pieces and stored in the trustless permissionless p2p network, on users' devices. It’s encrypted with asymmetric cryptography, where public keys are the addresses, and private keys allow the user to exclusively own the data, without anyone being able to access it, not even us, the developers of Eppie.

There will be no servers, no intermediaries. Previously, we've wrote a lot about why we think this is the right way for email to evolve, as well as more technical description of how this decentralized system is supposed to work. Read this and this if you are interested.

A cornerstone of Eppie's architecture is interoperability. Not only does Eppie connect the decentralized world with the traditional email, it also adds Bitcoin and Ethereum networks to the mix. Our internal build already allows to write directly to Bitcoin address. In the future one will be able to attach transactions directly to email. Here is a more detailed explanation of the system.

This is an ambitious project. Eppie is still in the preview stage and many of the functionality is still far ahead. But soon, we are planning to make our Testnet public to test our decentralized address system. So go ahead and install Eppie from the Snap Store (more Linux packages, like AppImage and RPM are on the way).

And if you want to be among the first to try the decentralized functionality, subscribe to our waiting list at https://eppie.io. We'll send you an invite to closed test even before the public testing begins.

Eppie — an open protocol encrypted p2p email, now with GUI

Eppie — Thu, 01 Aug 2024 15:30:13 +0000

Hi!
A few weeks ago, in this post, we’ve introduced CLI for Eppie — an encrypted p2p email. Today we’d like to focus a little bit on the GUI application, which we have also made available on GitHub. If you’ve read the previous post, you might want to skip the introduction and jump straight to the How to section. The rest of you, if you’re into decentralized applications and care about data privacy — read on.

So, what is Eppie?

Eppie is an open protocol encrypted p2p email and decentralized identity provider. It is currently in development, and we have recently begun this public testing. When released, Eppie will feature web3-grade privacy with full account and data ownership granted to users. It is capable of receiving direct messages from conventional IMAP/SMTP email, as well as connecting to multiple existing decentralized networks, like Ethereum or Bitcoin. It is intuitive and easy to use, like any other email client — and unlike most of the web3 applications we’ve seen.

Technically Eppie will be storing the data on IPFS infrastructure and using SBBS as a default transport layer. But the architecture allows to easily plug in multiple storage and transport technologies. Eppie’s e2e encryption is based on Elliptic-curve cryptography. GUI application is being written in C# with Uno. At the moment, GUI application works exclusively on Windows, but later we’ll add support for macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android platforms.

State of development

The p2p part is still in development. Although p2p messaging does work on the testnet, it is not yet an actually decentralised network — just a few nodes we run in a cloud. Meanwhile, Eppie works as a conventional email client supporting all major email providers e.g. Google or Microsoft Outlook. The local account is created using a Seed Phrase according to BIP39 standard and owned exclusively by the user. There are additional security features like PGP support and the ability to authenticate at Proton Mail servers (which none of the existing desktop clients can do by the way).

Here’s a list of features available now:

Creating a local account using a Seed Phrase according to BIP39 standard
PGP encryption support (WIP)
Connecting any number of third-party email accounts (e.g. Gmail. Microsoft Outlook etc.)
Connecting Proton Mail account
Creating a local backup
Viewing mailboxes & reading messages
Writing & sending messages

New features will be added as the core application matures.

Why would you need to give it a try? It might be interesting to those who wish to contribute to Eppie development (which would make us happy to the Moon and back 🥳). You might also want to try the p2p messaging as soon as it’s ready, and installing Eppie now, and updating it frequently, is certainly a way to go. Finally, you can use it with your Gmail, or Outlook with PGP client-side encryption. Or have your Proton Mail with the only available desktop client. The possibilities are not endless but substantial.

How to

The easiest way to get Eppie is to install from Windows Store. Here's the link.

Also you can download the installer from Github releases.

To build Eppie from source, you'll need Windows 10 or later.
Install Visual Studio 2022 with these workloads and components:

.Net Multi-platform App UI development
- Android SDK setup (with Android SDK Platform 31)
- .NET profiling tools
- Xamarin
Windows application development
- Universal Windows Platform tools
- Windows 11 SDK (10.0.22621.0)
- Windows 10 SDK (10.0.19041.0)

Now clone this repository:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/Eppie-io/Eppie-App.git eppie-app

To build the project open the src/Eppie.App/Eppie.App.sln file in the Visual Studio. Set the Eppie.App.UWP project as your starting project and select x64 platform. Start building the solution (Visual Studio Menu: Build ➤ Build Solution).

To launch the Eppie.App.UWP project chose Visual Studio Menu: Debug ➤ Start Debugging.

What else

As I’ve mentioned earlier, we would greatly appreciate contributions, so everyone is welcome to our GitHub. And don’t forget to give us some stars ⭐ — it matters a lot to us! Also feel free to leave a comment and ask your questions here. Thanks for reading!

How to use Proton Mail in the console

Eppie — Mon, 24 Jun 2024 10:54:29 +0000

In this tutorial, we will walk through the process of using the Eppie CLI to access Proton Mail from your console.

Proton Mail is renowned for its strong emphasis on privacy, utilizing the Secure Remote Password (SRP) protocol for authentication, which conventional email clients do not support. Eppie CLI implements SRP, enabling seamless access to Proton Mail from your command line interface. It is actually very easy to set up.

Before we begin you may want to learn more about Eppie. Here is our GitHub. And this is our blog. And now — onto our tutorial.

Step 1: Download and install Eppie-CLI

Download the latest binaries from our GitHub page. Unzip the package to any folder you like. Go to that folder and add execution permission to eppie-console like this:

chmod +x eppie-console

Run the file and initialize the application with init command.

Use a strong password.

You will not need the seed-phrase until the decentralized network is launched. But it is a good place for a reminder: never share the seed-phrase with anyone. And never loose it, because without the seed-phrase, your decentralized account will be lost forever.

Step 2: Connect your Proton Mail account

Say, previously you finished the session. Now as you relaunch the application, you need to open your Eppie account and enter the password.

Now let’s connect a Proton mailbox:

add-account -t Proton

This command needs an argument -t (on of three types of email to add). Dec stands for decentralized, and it is not yet publicly available. Email is any email except for Proton. Proton is its own type because it utilizes Secure Remote Password (SRP) protocol for authentication and it's very different from what normal email does. And it is the reason why no other desktop email client can connect to Proton Mail account. Eppie implements Proton’s version of SRP, and so it can.

Now just enter you Proton Mail address and password. And you are done!

Let’s look at your connected mailboxes: list-accounts

Step 3: List your emails

show-all-messages — lists all messages in all connected mailboxes.

show-message — displays a particular message. You will need to provide arguments to identify the message. You can run any command without arguments to see if it requires any.

Step 4: Send an email

We will send a little test message to ourselves:

send -s <sender-address> -r <receiver-address> -t <subject>

And here is your newly received proton message.

Whenever you need a reminder on available commands, run either of these:

-?|-h|--help

Now, Eppie is still early in development, and many things can and will be improved in the future updates. There is one slight inconvenience when receiving emails from other Proton Mail accounts: Proton tends to send its messages as html, and Eppie does not have an html parser at the moment. Which makes those messages difficult to read. But we are working on it. It does not happen with senders from non-Proton accounts and also when the message has been sent from within Eppie.

Hope you enjoy Eppie CLI as much as we do.

Don’t forget to update often to get the latest features and bug fixes.

And if you like it give us some stars on GitHub.

Good luck and stay encrypted!

Introducing Eppie-CLI — the official CLI for Eppie, an open protocol encrypted p2p email

Eppie — Wed, 15 May 2024 19:28:40 +0000

Hey! If you believe in the decentralized future of the Web, and maybe even like you Gmail or Proton Mail in the command line, this post might be just for you. I’m excited to introduce Eppie-CLI — a command line client for Eppie.

So, what is Eppie?

Eppie is an open protocol encrypted p2p email and decentralized identity provider. It is currently in development, and we are about to begin publicly testing the MVP. When released, Eppie will feature web3-grade privacy with full account and data ownership granted to users. It is capable of receiving direct messages from a conventional IMAP/SMTP email, as well as connecting to multiple existing decentralized networks, like Ethereum or Bitcoin. It’s GUI client (although not the main topic of this post) is also intuitive, unlike most of the web3 applications we’ve seen.

Technically Eppie will be storing the data on IPFS infrastructure and using SBBS as a default transport layer. But the architecture allows to easily plug in multiple storage and transport technologies. Eppie’s e2e encryption is based on Elliptic-curve cryptography. GUI application is being written in C# with Uno, and CLI is pure C#. Eppie targets Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android platforms.

While the p2p part is still in development, at the moment Eppie works as a conventional email client supporting all major email providers e.g. Google or Microsoft Outlook with a local account created using a Seed Phrase according to BIP39 standard and owned exclusively by the user¹, and additional security features like PGP support and the ability to authenticate at Proton Mail servers (which none of the existing desktop clients can do by the way).

Eppie CLI – as hardcore as it gets

Eppie-CLI is being developed along with the core application and is currently in alpha version. We mainly use it for testing during Eppie development.

Why would you need it? If you’ve read this far, you probably know, but just in case. It might be interesting for those who wish to contribute to Eppie development (which would make us happy to the Moon and back 🥳). You might also wish to try the p2p email as soon as it’s ready, and having the CLI on your machine is certainly a way to go. Finally, you can use it with your Gmail, or Outlook with PGP client-side encryption. Or have your CL Proton Mail. The possibilities are not endless but substantial.

Here’s a list of its available features:

Creating a local account using a Seed Phrase according to BIP39 standard
PGP encryption support (WIP)
Connecting any number of third-party email accounts (e.g. Gmail. Microsoft Outlook etc.)
Connecting Proton Mail account (WIP)
Creating a local backup
Viewing mailboxes
Viewing a single message
Writing & sending messages

New features will be added as the core application matures. In the future Eppie-CLI will become a fully featured official CLI for Eppie.

How to

You need .NET 8.0.

Clone the repository:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/Eppie-io/Eppie-CLI.git eppie-cli

And build:

dotnet build ./src/Eppie.CLI/

Launch the app like this:

dotnet run --project ./src/Eppie.CLI/Eppie.CLI/Eppie.CLI.csproj

Take a look at the available commands using -?|-h|--help

For example:

init — nitializes the application and creates Eppie account.
open — opens an existing Eppie account.
add-account — adds an email account.
show-all-messages — shows all messages from all accounts.
show-message — shows details of a specific message.
send — sends a message

What else

here's a little blog post we wrote on the topic of account ownership ↩