---
title: "How Doota is different"
description: "The handful of ideas that make Doota unlike Gmail or Outlook — chat-style threads, your own domain, real email underneath, and honest, private-by-default storage."
---

> Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.doota.dev/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# How Doota is different

Doota is email, but a few deliberate choices make it feel and behave unlike the
webmail you're used to. If you understand these five ideas, the rest of the app
makes sense.

## 1. Conversations, not folders

Doota shows every back-and-forth as **one running thread**, newest at the bottom,
the way a chat app does. You don't file mail into folders and go hunting later —
you archive a conversation when you're done and search for it if you need it. The
[inbox](/guide/inbox-and-threads) is a short list of what's live, not a landfill.

## 2. It's real email underneath

The chat look is just how Doota *shows* mail. Under the hood it's ordinary email,
so you can write to anyone on Gmail, Outlook, or anywhere else, and they can write
back from whatever they use. Nothing about Doota requires the other person to have
Doota.

## 3. Your address, on your own account

Doota follows **one organization = one mail domain**. It runs on a **domain you
control**, on a **[Cloudflare account](/self-hosting) you own** — there's no Doota
company server in the middle holding your mail. That's the opposite of signing up
for a free inbox on someone else's platform. (Setting that up is the
[self-hosting](/self-hosting) side; if someone handed you an account, they've
already done it.)

## 4. Private by default — and honest about it

The contents of your messages — subjects, bodies, attachments — are **encrypted
when stored**, so a database or storage leak can't read them. The one deliberate
exception is the **search index**, which keeps your subjects and body text
readable so full-text search is fast (see [Search](/guide/search); a mailbox can
be set non-indexed to opt out). Images in a message load *through* Doota, so
senders can't track you by opening their mail.

> **What this is — and isn't**
>
> Doota is **zero-access-at-rest**, not end-to-end encrypted — a real but limited
> promise. "At rest" means *while stored*: a leak of the database or file storage
> can't read your mail. It does **not** hide your mail from **whoever runs your
> Doota** — if you self-host, that's you; in an organization, that's your admin, who
> *can* access mail for oversight, by design. End-to-end encryption (which Doota is
> **not**) would mean nobody but the recipient could ever read it. If that's what
> you need, Doota isn't that tool. The [security reference](/reference/security) has
> the precise threat model.

## 5. Built to undo and get out of your way

Small things you'd want from a modern app are built in: [undo send and schedule
for later](/guide/composing), [snooze](/guide/inbox-and-threads), [throwaway
addresses](/guide/aliases), on-device [grammar check](/guide/grammar-check),
[reading your mail offline](/guide/offline), and sign-in with a
[passkey](/guide/account-security). None of it is bolted on — it's the point.

## Where to go next

- **Just want to use it?** → [Getting started](/guide/getting-started)
- **Day-to-day features** → [Using Doota](/guide)
- **The nuts and bolts** → [Architecture](/reference)

Source: https://docs.doota.dev/how-doota-works/index.mdx