In an age where digital communication is essential, the tools we use to connect can significantly impact our mission and reach. We are committed to fostering a sustainable future, and support those who work tirelessly to protect our planet. As part of this mission we offer free email services to environmental organizations.
Who We Are
Runbox is an environmentally conscious email service provider that prioritizes privacy, security, and sustainability. Based in Norway, Runbox operates on renewable energy and aims to minimize our carbon footprint. Our services are designed to be user-friendly while offering advanced features that cater to both individual users and organizations.
Supporting Environmental Organizations
This program is part of our broader commitment to fostering a sustainable future and supporting those who work tirelessly to protect our planet. It reflects our dedication to supporting causes that align with our values. Effective communication can lead to increased awareness, greater community engagement, and stronger advocacy efforts. This support helps create a network of informed and active citizens dedicated to environmental causes.
Email aliases are great – they help organize emails, reduce spam and protect our identity. But sometimes we need a quick way to create an alias without having to log in to our account to set it up. That’s when we can use plus-addressing, or subaddressing.
You simply add a + to your email address followed by a tag.
Any email sent to a plus-address is delivered to your account as usual. The message is still addressed to the plus-address, and you can use this in various ways to manage your email.
Plus-addressing benefits
Make up addresses on the fly without having to set anything up in your Runbox account.
Works with any email address, alias or domain.
Use a plus-address to identify sites where you used your email address.
Plus-addresses can help hide your main email address.
Use a different tag for each site so that if one has a data leak you know which one it is.
Filter email to specific folders based on the plus-addressing.
Create a filter to delete email to that particular plus address if it starts receiving spam.
Plus-addressing and email aliases are great tools to manage your email. With a Runbox account you get unlimited plus-addressing and 100 email aliases. If you have your own domain name, you get unlimited aliases. Check out this post for more info about aliases.
You can get more details about plus-addressing here.
To learn about how to create email aliases, check out this blog post.
Do you use email aliases? Aliases are a great tool that can help protect your identity, reduce spam, and organize your inbox.
Aliases are alternative email addresses that you can use to separate emails. Instead of using the same address for everything, you set up different aliases for online subscriptions, registrations, newsletters, social media, business contacts and so on. Any category that works for you. You can use your main address for friends and family, or create another alias.
All your aliases are set up under your main email account, and is delivered to your primary inbox. You can even set up filters so that mail is separated into specific folders in your account.
Not only will aliases give you another layer of anonymity, it also gives you control over your information and makes online tracking more difficult. Having aliases can help prevent someone hacking your main email account, and helps protect you from phishing attacks. If one of your aliases starts to receive lots of spam, you can easily delete the alias and set up a new one.
Now we are excited to announce a bounty program to accelerate development further. The program is two-fold and introduces bounties for both features and bugs.
Feature bounties
We encourage you to contribute to Runbox 7 with your skill and talent by adding new functionality that all Runbox 7 users can enjoy.
All contributions must include tests and documentation in order to be accepted.
Gold – $1,000 reward
Gold bounties are rewarded for contributing major new features that involve substantial additions to the Runbox 7 code base.
Examples of such features can be found on the Runbox 7 Roadmap and include complete, new screens for Account, Files, or Manager with REST endpoint specifications.
Other examples are significant optimizations of the code that improve performance or substantially restructures or refactors the code base.
Silver – $500 reward
Silver bounties are given for contributions of medium-sized new features or additions of new functionality that improves existing features.
Examples of such features can be found on the Runbox 7 Roadmap and include new screens for sections under Account, Files, or Manager with REST endpoint specifications.
Bronze – $100 reward
Smaller features or functionality that extends or improves existing features.
Integrity and reliability is paramount to our operations and although we take all reasonable precautions to prevent bugs, all open source software benefits from thorough reviews from the community.
Therefore we provide bug bounties for reports regarding errors or vulnerabilities that are currently unknown to Runbox, with an emphasis on problems that could impact the integrity of our services.
High – $1,000 reward
Reporting severe errors that could lead to elevated privileges, significant data compromise, or service downtime.
To be eligible for this bounty:
You must not publicly disclose your finding.
You must never exploit any found vulnerability.
You must send a detailed explanation with steps to reproduce the bug.
You may submit a patch that fixes the issue for a double bounty!
Reporting vulnerabilities that provide limited access and that could result in denial of service, manipulation of individual accounts, or temporary problems that affect limited data sets.
To be eligible for this bounty:
You must not publicly disclose your finding.
You must never exploit any found vulnerability.
You must send a detailed explanation with steps to reproduce the bug.
You may submit a patch that fixes the issue for a double bounty!
When you log into Runbox 7 the first thing you’ll notice — aside from its beautiful design — is the speed.
Your folders and messages will load instantly, and no matter how many messages you have the message list will scroll without delay and without any limit.
Gone are the days of waiting for the next screen-full of messages to load, or having to click to navigate between pages. Switching between folders, sorting the message list, and moving messages — any action you perform is executed instantly.
And the message search is lightning fast — results will show up immediately while you type into the search field. Combined with message threading and inline message previews, this makes email management extremely efficient with Runbox 7.
Under the hood
We have modified Xapian by porting Xapian to WebAssembly using the C to WebAssembly compiler from emscripten, which lets it run both in NodeJS on the server and in the browser. Our fork of Xapian will be merged into Xapian’s repository on Github so that it will become available for others to use.
This is accomplished by utilizing a custom version of the open source Xapian email indexer. We have always been impressed with Xapian’s processing speed, reliability, and adaptability, and it’s ability to index large amounts of messages.
The Runbox 7 Webmail App is open source and is available in our main repo at https://github.com/runbox/runbox7. We encourage you to check out our code base, and invite you to join the Runbox revolution by getting involved in our growing community at https://community.runbox.com!
The Xapian database is stored in the browser using IndexedDB, which is available through the IDBFS file system of emscripten.
Combined with a central message database and the use of websockets, this allows the indices to stay in sync when new email arrives on the server and when changes are made locally.
The user interface
The power of the WebAssembly Xapian port is matched by the message listing which is written in HTML5 Canvas. This makes it possible to handle large tables and quick re-rendering, and provides good control of the rendering process.
Ordinary HTML tables would suffer slowdown penalties on sorting, filtering, and resizing, and would require pagination, and would not be efficient enough for our needs.
The Canvas element is wrapped in a user interface written in HTML/Typescript using Angular 2+, and is built using UI elements from https://material.angular.io/.
Mail parsing is done using the HTML parser from Andris Reinmann which is written for NodeJS and can be found here: https://github.com/andris9/mailparser.
We are excited to announce the closed beta test phase of Runbox 7 Webmail!
This release is not merely an upgrade to our existing services, it’s a bold step into a new world of Webmail apps that will provide unprecedented speed and usability.
Runbox 7 aims to be the fastest webmail on the planet with:
Screenshot sample of Runbox 7 Webmail
Instant folder views and search results.
Endless, smooth scrolling of folder contents.
Drag & drop message selection and moving to folders.
Incremental, instant search functionality.
The new webmail will be the cornerstone of Runbox 7, and is the first of several development stages that will culminate in a completely new user interface.
Please read on for details about Runbox 7 Webmail and how you can participate in the closed beta test.
Superior speed
Runbox 7 started with a crazy idea:
How can we create a webmail that’s not just faster, but responds instantly?
The solution we developed is a combination of database accelerated email storage, innovative message indexing, and cutting-edge web technology.
When you log into Runbox 7 Webmail, you enter a modern webmail environment built with Angular 5 and Material Design. Your email folders and messages will be shown instantly, giving you an immediate overview of your email.
The spacious layout, clean lines, and powerful engine lets you efficiently navigate the new features and get down to the business of effectively managing your email.
Incremental search
Incremental search
One of the core features of Runbox 7 Webmail is its search capabilities. We have built the search functionality in such a way that the browser doesn’t need to query the server at all.
Not only that, but this webmail will show you search results incrementally while you are typing in the Search field.
You have better things to do than waiting for search results, so we put a lot of effort into making the search function as fast as possible — and this is as fast as it’s possible to get.
Lots of cool functionality
Infinite listing: No more clicking back and forth to navigate your Inbox — just scroll down and the next messages will load automatically.
Threaded view: Want to see your messages in conversation view? Just tick the Threaded checkbox to the top right.
Unread messages: Only interested in the latest news? Tick the Unread checkbox.
Multi-select messages: Want to select many messages in a hurry? Just click the check box of a message, and drag up or down while holding the mouse button down to select several messages in a row.
Runbox 7 preview pane
Preview pane: Who has time to actually open a message? Just select one in the list and a preview will be shown in the bottom half of the message list pane. To see more, click the ^ arrow in the preview menu.
Hide folders: Want more space for your messages? Just click the icon to the left of the Search area to hide the folder pane.
Draft Desk
Runbox 7 Draft Desk
Another key feature of Runbox 7 Webmail is the Draft Desk — a completely new way of managing drafts.
In our world of non-stop online communication, we often find ourselves multitasking and working on several threads in parallel. With our new Draft Desk you get a full overview of the messages you are currently working on, previewed side by side in an efficient interface.
Simply click on a draft preview to expand it, write down your thoughts, and send, save, or close the message to return to it later.
Mobile ready
We believe that you shouldn’t have to switch between different apps or user interfaces just because you switch between a laptop, a tablet, or a smart phone.
Therefore we built Runbox 7 Webmail to be mobile-ready and responsive from the ground up. This means that it will automatically adapt to your device’s screen size and orientation while retaining the basic functionality you are used to from a regular browser.
Join the closed beta test
To join the closed beta test of Runbox 7 Webmail, contact support@nullrunbox.com with the subject “Runbox 7 Webmail beta test”. If you are selected to participate, we will then be in touch with further details.
2014 has been an exciting year for Runbox and we’ve seen a substantial increase in popularity and growth. This has really boosted our progress — we now have several major upgrades in the pipeline, and we are very happy to be launching a new Webmail design!
We’ve called the new design Runbox Aero because it’s lighter, airier, and simpler — and it makes using email a breeze!
Runbox Aero is inspired by modern, state-of-the-art design, and we have listened carefully to feedback from you in order to make it both aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly.
You can try the new design now by going to Webmail > Preferences and selecting Runbox Aero from the drop-down menu. Make sure you click Save Settings afterwards!
You will quickly notice some of the improvements, but the following changes are worth mentioning:
Modernized look
The font face has been replaced with a larger, lighter, and more modern font. A bolder font face is available in an alternative design.
The header has been shrunk to make more room for your email.
All the icons have been redesigned and optimized for retina (high resolution) displays.
All buttons have been enlarged and are now dark blue to make them easier to see.
Better menu navigation
The sub-menus have been enlarged to make them easier to navigate.
The Compose button has been moved to the far left and made more prominent.
The Folder Management button has been removed — just click Folders at the top of the folder list or the Folder Management link underneath it to access the Folders screen.
The Read, Unread, Flag, and Unflag buttons can now be accessed by hovering the cursor over the new Mark button.
Simplified Compose screen
The Compose screen has been simplified to only show the most important fields. To see the BCC, Attachments, Tags, and Nicknames fields, just click “Show all fields”.
We hope you like the new design, and please let us know if you have any comments or suggestions!
Many of our customers use message tags as an alternative to folders in order to organize and categorize their email.
You can now manage your message tags by clicking Tags in the left pane in Webmail, or by going directly to https://runbox.com/mail/tags. The Tag management screen lets you add and delete tags, and get an overview of the messages that are already tagged.
To add a tag to a message, just open the message, select the tag name (or [New tag] to enter a new tag name) and click “Add tag”.
In recent weeks there has been some discussion in news outlets about SSL/TLS, which is used by many websites to encrypt the data being transferred between web servers and web browsers.
Since it’s theoretically possible for outsiders to break such encryption, an increasing number of people are requesting improved encryption methods.
What is SSL/TLS?
SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) and its successor TLS (Transport Layer Security) are cryptographic methods used to secure communication on the Internet. By using pairs of private and public keys, the web server and the client can securely encrypt and decrypt the data being transferred between two parties.
When a web browser connects to a website protected with SSL or TLS (indicated by a padlock icon in the browser) it receives the public key from the server, which is then used to encrypt the subsequent communication. The data can only be decrypted using the private key, which resides on the server.
The problem with keys
However, if someone was able to break in and copy the private key from a server, they would theoretically be able to decrypt any communication to/from that server — provided that they were also able to eavesdrop on the communication.
The solution: Unique keys
To counter this it’s recently become possible to configure web servers to issue a unique key pair for every single connection, and immediately destroy the keys once the session is complete.
This method is called Forward Secrecy because it prevents anyone from retroactively breaking the encryption.
Forward Secrecy on Runbox
Runbox has now implemented Forward Secrecy in order to further improve the security and privacy of our services. It’s now virtually impossible to eavesdrop on the data being transmitted between your web browser and Runbox’ web servers — and you don’t have to do anything in order to enjoy this new level of security.
For those who are interested in the technical details, here is an analysis of the security provided by https://runbox.com, which is now our main address:
In order to improve the security of our email services have moved our front page to a new and upgraded server running Runbox 6 at https://runbox.com.
In preparation for this we have modified Runbox 6 to redirect Runbox 5 users to the corresponding server, if your account settings indicate that you have not yet upgraded to Runbox 6.
In other words, if you have been logging in at https://rmm6.runbox.com and have never clicked the “Switch to Runbox 6” button in Runbox 5, you will be redirected to Runbox 5.
To continue using Runbox 6, please click “Switch to Runbox 6” at the bottom of the folder list in Webmail.
Now we are excited to announce a bounty program to accelerate development further. The program is two-fold and introduces bounties for both features and bugs.
When a web browser connects to a website protected with SSL or TLS (indicated by a padlock icon in the browser) it receives the public key from the server, which is then used to encrypt the subsequent communication. The data can only be decrypted using the private key, which resides on the server.