mailghost

mailghost is a friendly command-line client for creating and checking a disposable Mail.tm inbox without leaving the terminal.

Disposable inboxes are public-facing, temporary infrastructure. Do not use them for sensitive data, permanent accounts, or account recovery.

Features

• Create and persist one disposable inbox.
• Show its address and creation time.
• List received messages and open a selected message.
• Remove the locally stored inbox data.

Installation

Install the prebuilt binary with Homebrew on macOS or Linux:

brew tap kelvin-jesus/mailghost https://github.com/Kelvin-Jesus/mailghost
brew install kelvin-jesus/mailghost/mailghost

If you installed Mailghost from the previous Kelvin-Jesus/tap repository, migrate to the formula maintained in this repository:

brew uninstall mailghost
brew untap kelvin-jesus/tap
brew tap kelvin-jesus/mailghost https://github.com/Kelvin-Jesus/mailghost
brew install kelvin-jesus/mailghost/mailghost

This only replaces the Homebrew installation. Your locally stored Mailghost account remains unchanged.

Arch Linux packaging is prepared, but its initial AUR publication is pending while new AUR account registrations are unavailable. Until then, use the prebuilt Linux archive from the latest release.

You can also install it from crates.io:

cargo install mailghost --locked

Or install the current repository version:

cargo install --git https://github.com/Kelvin-Jesus/mailghost

To build from a local checkout:

git clone https://github.com/Kelvin-Jesus/mailghost.git
cd mailghost
cargo build --release

The project requires Rust 1.88 or newer.

Prebuilt releases

Version tags publish archives for:

• macOS on Intel (x86_64) and Apple Silicon (aarch64)
• Linux on x86_64 and aarch64
• Android on x86_64 and aarch64

Each GitHub release includes a SHA256SUMS file. The Android artifacts are command-line binaries for Termux or ADB, not APK applications. On Android, selected message bodies are printed in the terminal instead of being opened by a desktop application.

Usage

mailghost generate
mailghost account
mailghost messages
mailghost delete

The g, me, m, and d forms are available as short aliases. Run mailghost --help or mailghost <command> --help for command-line help.

Local data

The active account is stored as mailghost/account.json inside the operating system's user configuration directory:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/mailghost/account.json
• Linux: ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-~/.config}/mailghost/account.json

When you select a message, mailghost messages writes its text body to a temporary file and asks the operating system to open it.

mailghost delete removes local data only. Inbox availability and retention are controlled by Mail.tm.

Development

cargo fmt --check
cargo clippy --all-targets -- -D warnings
cargo test --all-targets

See CONTRIBUTING.md for the development workflow.

Limitations

• Only one local account is supported at a time.
• Mail.tm is the only provider.
• The CLI is not a full terminal mail reader.
• Provider-side inbox retention and domain availability can change.
• Disposable email should not be used for sensitive, permanent, or account-recovery communication.

License

MIT