A Meco alternative that never touches your inbox

Full disclosure: this page is written by Kevin, who built bwak.news. I'm a retired ops and IT leader who runs a small farm in Tennessee. I built bwak.news for myself because my newsletters were getting buried in my inbox, and I now read more than 70 newsletters in it every day. Every Meco detail below comes from Meco's own website and help docs as of October 2026. Check their site for the latest.

How Meco and bwak.news get your newsletters

This is the real difference between the two, so it's worth being precise.

Meco gives you two ways in. You can use a Meco inbox address (on mecoinbox.com) to subscribe to newsletters, which doesn't involve your inbox at all. Or, on Meco Pro, you can connect up to three Gmail or Outlook accounts. When you connect, Meco requests permissions to find your current newsletters. Past issues of the newsletters you pick are moved to a Meco label or folder in your email account, and future issues are filtered there instead of your inbox. Meco says your emails are stored locally on your device and never leave it, that it never processes or sells your email data, and that it is a Google Verified app with regular third-party security audits.

bwak.news has one way in: addresses. You claim a handle, and each newsletter you move over gets its own alias, like you.morningbrew@bwak.news. bwak.news never asks for access to Gmail, Outlook, or any other inbox. Not once. That's why it works the same for Proton Mail, iCloud, Fastmail, and Gmail users.

So the honest version is this: Meco doesn't require inbox access either, if you stick with its mailbox address. Where they differ is that Meco's fastest setup runs through your inbox, and bwak.news doesn't offer that path at all.

bwak.news vs. Meco at a glance

What Meco does well

• Native apps. Meco has real iOS and Android apps plus a web reader. bwak.news is a web app you add to your home screen.
• Fast setup for Gmail and Outlook users. Connect your inbox and your existing subscriptions show up without resubscribing anything.
• AI summaries and audio. Pro gives you AI summaries of any newsletter and a short daily personalized podcast. bwak.news has nothing like that.
• Discovery. Meco recommends newsletters based on what you read. Good if you're still building your list.
• A free tier and a lower annual price. You can use Meco for free, and Pro's annual plan costs less than bwak.news.

Where bwak.news is different

• No inbox connection, ever. There's no permission to grant and no label added to your email account. Your inbox is simply never involved.
• One address per newsletter. If a sender starts spamming you or your address shows up somewhere it shouldn't, you know exactly who it came from. Block that one address and everything else keeps working.
• Your real email stays private. Senders only ever see their bwak.news alias.
• Built for reading every issue. A plain, chronological feed. No summaries standing in for the newsletter, no recommendations, no reordering.
• Any email provider. Proton Mail, iCloud, and Fastmail users get the same product as Gmail users.

Where bwak.news falls short: no native app store app, no AI features, no free tier, and no bulk import. You point each newsletter at its new alias. The migration helper takes most of the busywork out of it: forward an issue to migrate.<yourseed>@bwak.news and it creates that newsletter's alias for you.

Which one should you pick?

• Pick Meco if you use Gmail or Outlook, want a native mobile app, and like the idea of AI summaries, audio roundups, or discovering new newsletters. If you're comfortable connecting your inbox, its setup is hard to beat.
• Pick bwak.news if you don't want any app connected to your inbox, you use a provider like Proton Mail, iCloud, or Fastmail, or you want a separate address per newsletter so you can shut off any one sender.

Comparing more than these two? See the best newsletter reader apps in 2026.