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About Skiff

Established in 2020, the open-source project Skiff initially focused on providing a secure document editing service similar to Google Docs. An end-to-end encrypted email service was added in 2022. The number of users of this service has grown very quickly over the past two years.[1] From Mailvelope's perspective, the high level of interest indicates the high demand for a secure and end-to-end encrypted email system. We also saw this in an increasing number of requests to ensure compatibility of Mailvelope encryption with Skiff.

A sudden shutdown of encrypted email services

Like Mailvelope, Skiff was an important part in the Open Source privacy tools landscape. Given this popularity the disappointment and resentment among Skiff's users grew when the fusion of Skiff with the cloud note app Notion was announced last week.[2] Even more, they will discontinue its email service altogether within six months.

Mailvelope as an alternative for encrypted email

Mailvelope, designed as a browser extension, is the Swiss army knife for encrypting emails from any webmail provider. This concept, where all essential data remains on your computer (especially your private PGP key!) is also the biggest advantage of Mailvelope. You remain free to choose your email address and provider. There is no need to create an @mailvelope.com address and thus enter into a commitment to Mailvelope as a service provider.

With Mailvelope, you keep the PGP key management conveniently in your browser. This enables you to send and receive encrypted emails with any webmail account, even different ones in parallel.

Even those who now feel drawn to self-hosted email solutions because they don't want to be tied to a service provider don't have to do without Mailvelope. For example, Mailvelope works very well with the open source webmail Roundcube, used by many hosting providers as a webmail surface. Mailvelope's ability to connect to the Roundcube API enables a convenient workflow when it comes to encrypted email.

If you would like to know more about Mailvelope, this short introduction to how it works might be useful. Installation and initial key generation is described in our Get started guide.

So if you are looking for a proven and secure alternative to Skiff email services, you should definitely give Mailvelope a try.

[1] On November the 18th Skiff announced it has reached a user base of 2 million: https://x.com/skiffprivacy/status/1725969315332067604?s=20

[2] Skiff’s announcement of its fusion with Notion on X: https://x.com/skiffprivacy/status/1756093174806974831?s=20