Mailicity / A simple email app for your Mum or Dad

For the parent or partner you look after

A calm email app for the parent or partner you look after.

Mailicity is built for the iPad on your Mum or Dad's bedside table. Big type, big buttons, only the people who matter, none of the scams. Set up by you in five minutes; quiet from then on.

Start your free trial → See what's in it

Free during early access · No card needed · Works with their existing email

Today's inbox
9:41 ● ● ●
Mailicity
Your messages
S
Sarah New
daughter
›

Photos from the canal walk — Olive picked up about twelve…

This morning
E
Eli New
grandson
›

School play next Thursday — I'm playing the lion!…

Yesterday afternoon
T
Tom
son
›

Coming up next weekend — we land at 6pm Friday…

On Monday
R
Ruth
sister
›

Recipe you asked for — apple loaf, the trick really is…

Last week
✎   Write a message

— maximal-tier inbox, the version most families end up using.

· · ·

§Section 1 · A different idea

The kind of inbox they actually need.

Most email apps are designed for office workers in their thirties. They are not the right shape for the person you look after.

Office-worker email assumes you can keep 47 folders in your head, scan a busy list of subject lines, ignore the marketing, spot the scams, manage the spam folder, and remember which of the four buttons in the corner archives versus deletes versus snoozes.

That's a fine design for a 35-year-old with a laptop. It's a terrible design for the person you look after.

Mailicity is built around a different idea: a single, calm list of messages from the people they actually want to hear from, on an iPad that gets out of their way. No folders. No spam filter to manage. No threading. No swipe-to-delete that catches them by surprise. Big, readable type. A "Reply" button that's the size of a biscuit.

If they open it three times a day to read what their grandkids have sent, that's what we built it for.

Section 2 · What's in it

The bits that matter, in plain terms.

i

A short list of messages from the people you've approved.

That's the inbox. No folders, no labels, no sort options. Names they recognise, in big readable type, newest at the top.

ii

A "Reply" button, and a "Write" button.

Tap, type, send. The Send button waits four seconds before it actually sends, so a misfire is recoverable.

iii

Inline photos and videos.

When a family member sends a picture of the grandkids, it shows up properly. No "tap to download" friction.

iv

An allowlist you manage from your phone.

You add the people who can reach them — the sister, the GP, the church friend, the grandkids. Anyone not on the list lands in your queue, not theirs.

v

A "settings" screen they can't accidentally get to.

Hidden behind a long-press they'll never find. The thing most other apps get wrong is letting the user reach the settings; we don't.

vi

An accessibility setting you control.

Three tiers — bigger type and bigger buttons the more support they need. Set it once for them, leave it alone.

That's it. That's the whole app. Deliberately.

✶Section 3 · A typical morning

How it actually feels in practice.

For them

Their iPad, on the bedside table.

9:14 AM

They open the iPad, tap the Mailicity icon. Inbox is right there. Three messages — their sister, their son, their granddaughter's school.

They read the one from their granddaughter, tap Reply, type a short message, tap Send (twice — once to confirm), and the iPad goes back to the inbox.

They might put it down and pick it up again at lunchtime. That's the whole morning.

A few minutes. Three messages they wanted to read.

For you

Your phone, on the train.

8:42 AM

A marketing email from a luxury watch company has appeared in your queue. You tap Block.

A "Hi Mum, it's me, I got a new phone" scam has appeared. You tap Block.

Their old GP — who's retired — has sent a goodbye email. You tap Approve and add to their contacts, and they see it the next time they open the iPad.

A few seconds of attention from you. The day's noise, handled.

A few seconds of attention from you, once or twice a day, in exchange for an inbox that's been kept calm for them.

⌗Section 4 · For the buyers comparing

How Mailicity sits next to the other options.

Brief, honest summaries of the products you're most likely weighing. Each links to a longer comparison.

Apple Mail with Assistive Access

Free · built into iPadOS

Built in, free, and a real improvement on the standard iPad. The catch: Apple hasn't built a simplified Mail app — it's the same scam-flooded inbox just inside a friendlier shell.

More about that →

GrandPad

$299 + $40/mo · dedicated tablet

A locked-down Android tablet, designed specifically for older adults. Genuinely good — but you have to buy a whole new device. Mailicity works on the iPad they already have.

More about that →

SAFEnSOUNDmail

~$30/mo · web service since 2009

A protective web-based email service. Same core idea as Mailicity, but it gives them a new email address (their doctor and their sister keep using the old one), and the experience is a web browser, not a dedicated tablet app.

More about that →

Symmpl · Red Stamp Mail · eM Client

Various · single-developer apps

Each does part of what Mailicity does — usually the inbox view, sometimes the contact picker. None brings the family admin web app, the moderation queue, the multi-admin workflow, or the iPad-native design.

Compare individually →

We don't think any of these are bad. We do think Mailicity is the one we'd want for our own parents.

⁂Section 5 · The founder, briefly

I built this for my Mum. When she moved into an aged-care home, email became her lifeline — but also her biggest exposure. With mild cognitive decline and hands that didn't always go where she meant them to, she'd ask me three times a week if a "Google Security Alert" was real.

I tried locking down her iPad, I tried Gmail filters, I tried Apple's Assistive Access. None of them quite fit. So I built Mailicity. It works for my Mum. I think it might work for yours.

— Steve Founder · Mailicity

Quieter email for the people who matter to them.

Set up Mailicity on the iPad they already use. Free during early access.

Start your free trial →

Works with Gmail, iCloud, Outlook, and standard IMAP · Designed in Australia · Built by a son for his Mum

?Questions, answered

A few that come up.

Is this just for people with dementia?

No. Mailicity is built for anyone who finds email overwhelming — older parents who never quite got the hang of it, partners recovering from a brain injury, family members with mental health vulnerabilities, anyone who'd like a quieter inbox. The product mechanics are the same; only the framing changes.

Does it replace their existing email?

No. It wraps it. Their existing address keeps working for everyone they write to. Nothing to migrate.

What if they want to email a friend who isn't on the allowlist?

On the iPad, the compose screen only shows contacts who've been approved. To add a new person, they'd ask you, and you'd add them via the admin web app — same way you'd approve an incoming message from someone new.

Can my brother and I both administer it?

Yes. Add as many family co-admins as you like. The audit log shows who did what.

What about my parent's privacy?

We never read message content for our own purposes. We don't sell data, we don't train AI on their messages, we don't keep message bodies long-term. We fetch from their existing mailbox when they open a message, and forget.

What devices does it work on?

iPad first. Android tablet support is coming. We're not optimising for phones — the larger screen is meaningfully better for the people Mailicity is designed for.

↗Read next

If you're still weighing the options.

mailicity.com/apple-assistive-access-email

Email for Apple Assistive Access

Apple's Assistive Access doesn't include a Mail app. Here's the gap, and how Mailicity slots into it.

Read → mailicity.com/grandpad-alternative

A GrandPad alternative

If you've been quoted $780 for a senior tablet and want a software-only option.

Read → mailicity.com/protect-parent-email-scams

Protecting your parent from email scams

The longer guide — what scams look like now, what's working to stop them, what to do after.

Read →