Radius

A quiet place for your email.

A minimal, fast desktop client for Gmail. No clutter. No ads. No noise. Just your inbox, cached locally, ready the moment you open it.

v1.0.0 — Free and open source under MIT

Radius email client showing the inbox and reader view

Built for focus

Every decision was made to remove friction. No tabs. No chat widgets. No promotions sidebar.

Local cache

Your inbox syncs to a local SQLite database. Open the app — your emails are already there. No spinners. No waiting.

Typographic reader

Emails render in a centered 680px column with generous line height and system serif. Finally, an email client that respects the craft of reading.

Read-only by design

Radius only reads your inbox. No send, no delete, no archive. Your OAuth scope is minimal. Your trust is maximal.

Always in sync

Background incremental sync via Gmail's history API. New emails appear without a manual refresh. The cache stays warm.

Secure by default

OAuth tokens live in your system keychain, not a config file. HTML email bodies are sanitized before they ever reach the renderer.

120fps scrolling

Virtualized lists handle 10,000+ emails without breaking a sweat. Built with @tanstack/react-virtual and disciplined rendering.

How it works

Three steps from install to inbox. No configuration files. No server to run.

01

Connect Gmail

One-click OAuth with PKCE. We request read-only access. You approve. That's it.

02

First sync

Radius fetches your inbox and stores it locally. A progress bar shows the way. For a thousand emails, this takes under a minute.

03

Just read

From now on, Radius opens instantly. Background sync keeps you current. No waiting. No loading states. Just email.

“Speed is the feature. Silence is the interface.”

We built Radius because existing email clients treat your attention as inventory to be sold. Ads in the sidebar. Promotions in your primary tab. Chat widgets sliding over your draft. Every pixel is a negotiation.

Radius does less, better. One account. One inbox. One beautiful reader. If you need a power tool, this isn't it. If you need a quiet place to read your email — welcome.

Open source, end to end

Radius is MIT licensed. The entire stack — from the sync engine to the renderer — is plain TypeScript. No hidden binaries. No telemetry. No dependencies you can't audit.

Electrobun Bun React Tailwind CSS SQLite TypeScript
View source on GitHub
System requirements
macOS 12.0+ (Monterey)
Windows 10+ (64-bit)
Linux AppImage (x64)
Required Gmail account

Questions

Does Radius work with Outlook or other providers?
Not yet. Radius is Gmail-only for v1.0. IMAP support is on the roadmap for a future release.
Can I compose or send emails?
No. Radius is intentionally read-only. It is designed for reading, not managing, your inbox. If you need to reply, your browser is one click away.
Where is my data stored?
Locally on your machine in a SQLite database. Nothing leaves your device except API calls to Gmail's servers.
Is there a mobile app?
No. Radius is a desktop application only. The focus is on a calm, full-screen reading experience that phones can't provide.
Will you add AI features?
No plans to. The product philosophy is subtraction, not addition.
How do I report a bug or request a feature?
Open an issue on GitHub. We read everything, even if we don't respond to every request.

Ready for a quieter inbox?

Free. Open source. No account required.