Gnuke vs SaneBox: sort your mail, or clear it out for good?

SaneBox and Gnuke both promise a calmer inbox, but they work on different mail. SaneBox sorts what arrives every day, on its servers, for Gmail, Microsoft 365, iCloud, Yahoo and more. Gnuke removes what you don't want from Gmail: one tap on a sender unsubscribes you and moves everything they ever sent to Trash, and from then on it can block that sender and clear new junk on a schedule. None of it passes through a Gnuke server.

sanebox.com

The short version#

SaneBox watches your incoming mail and files the unimportant messages into folders such as SaneLater and SaneNews, so your inbox shows what matters. It also sends a daily digest and reminders. Gnuke doesn't sort anything. You see a sender in Gmail, tap, and the sender is unsubscribed and every email from them is in Trash, with Undo for 30 days. Then it keeps going. Block sends a sender's future mail straight to Trash with a Gmail filter, and on Unlimited, auto cleanup runs every day or once a week at a time you pick, moving newsletters and promos older than a week, a month or 3 months to Trash, plus anything new from senders you already nuked.

So both keep working after day one. The difference is what they do with the mail. SaneBox files it into folders for you to read later. Gnuke gets rid of it.

Side by side#

We checked this table on October 21, 2026, against SaneBox's home page, pricing page and help center. Plans and features change.

sanebox.com/pricing

The real differences#

Sorting new mail versus clearing old mail#

SaneBox's core feature is SaneLater. Mail from senders you rarely engage with moves out of the inbox into a folder, SaneNews rounds up newsletters, and SaneBlackHole keeps a sender's future mail out of your inbox (tour). You teach it by dragging messages between your inbox and its folders (help). Reviewers on Trustpilot say the start takes some training, and some describe about a month before the sorting felt right (Trustpilot, third-party review).

Gnuke has no training period. It acts on the senders you pick and the auto cleanup rule you set: how old the mail has to be and how often it runs. It won't triage your inbox into read-later folders. What it does is get rid of the junk and keep it from piling back up, which suits "my Gmail is full of newsletters I never opened."

Both can clear old mail, in different ways#

SaneBox does have an answer for the backlog. Email Deep Clean is included in every plan. It scans mail older than a date you pick, looks for the contacts, newsletters and stores that send the most or the largest mail, emails you when the analysis is done, and then moves the senders you select to Trash. It warns the analysis can take a while on a large mailbox (help). The help page doesn't say whether it also unsubscribes you or offers an Undo.

Gnuke's Clean up works inside your own browser. It lists every newsletter and promo sender, ranks them by how much they send and how often you open them, and shows an estimate of how much storage each sender's mail takes. Tick several senders and nuke them together. Each nuke unsubscribes you the best way the sender allows, then moves their whole history to Trash.

getgnuke.com/#cleanup

Where your mail is processed#

SaneBox connects to your mail account from its own servers. Its site says it uses OAuth where the mail service supports it, looks at the sender, subject line and date, and never stores full emails or attachments (sanebox.com). Its help page says it analyzes headers only, and that SaneFwd and SaneAttachments temporarily download emails to forward them or handle attachments (help). It also says headers and other information it handles are deleted when you cancel.

Gnuke has no such server. It talks to Gmail straight from your browser or phone, so nobody at Gnuke can see your inbox. The one server in the system is a small reminder service for the optional weekly phone notification, and it keeps only a push address and the day and hour you picked. Details are in the privacy policy.

SaneBox states its approach openly, so this is a design choice, not a catch. It matters most if you'd rather your mail not pass through someone else's machine.

Undo and safety#

Gnuke never deletes anything permanently. Everything lands in Gmail's Trash, and Undo puts it all back for 30 days. Starred mail always stays, and you can choose to keep labeled mail, important mail, and the sender's newest 1, 3 or 10 emails. Senders on your keep list are never offered for nuking.

getgnuke.com/#does

SaneBox moves mail to Trash and to its own folders rather than erasing it. For SaneBlackHole it says mail stays there 7 days before moving to Trash, and that it clears the newest items early if the Sane folders pass 5,000 messages combined or SaneBlackHole passes 250 (help).

What it costs#

SaneBox has no free plan. It offers a 7-day trial of every feature for up to 4 accounts. The paid plans differ by how many accounts you connect and how many of its extra features you can switch on: Snack gives each account 2 features, Lunch gives each account 6, and Dinner has them all (pricing). A Snack plan for one account is $65 a year when billed annually. These are the prices on sanebox.com on October 21, 2026.

Gnuke's first 10 nukes are free, and Block is included. Unlimited is $29.99 a year or $4.99 a month, covers up to 3 Gmail accounts, and adds auto cleanup. Gnuke removes mail rather than sorting it, so the two prices don't buy the same thing.

Where SaneBox is better#

• It works with Microsoft 365, iCloud, Yahoo, Fastmail, any IMAP, Exchange or ActiveSync server, and Gmail. Gnuke only works with Gmail.
• It sorts. SaneLater, SaneNews, the daily digest, reminders and snooze organize new mail as it arrives. Gnuke's ongoing tools, Block and auto cleanup, remove mail instead of filing it, and auto cleanup runs while Chrome is open.
• Its folders appear in every mail app and on every device, because they live on your mail server.
• It has iOS and Android apps, and its pricing page cites more than 100,000 users. Gnuke is new.
• It's been around since 2010.

Using both#

They overlap less than it looks, so nothing stops you from running both. Let SaneBox sort the mail you might want later. Let Gnuke remove the mail you don't: clear the backlog of old newsletters and promos once with Clean up (and see how much storage they take), block the senders that won't stop, and turn on auto cleanup for the rest. Add the senders you care about to Gnuke's keep list first, so they're never offered for nuking.

Who should pick which#

Pick SaneBox if your mail is on Microsoft 365, iCloud or Yahoo, if you want AI to sort mail into read-later folders rather than remove it, or if you want reminders and snoozing built into your inbox and don't mind a service connecting to your mail account.

Pick Gnuke if your mail is on Gmail and it's full, you want junk gone and not just moved to a folder, you want new junk to keep going to Trash on a schedule without training anything, you want to see how much storage each sender takes, or you want nothing about your inbox to touch a server. You can try it free: how it works and pricing show the details.

For other comparisons, see Gnuke vs Clean Email, Gnuke vs Unroll.me, Gnuke vs Trimbox and Gnuke vs Gmail's Manage subscriptions. To learn the manual route first, read how to delete all emails from one sender in Gmail or how to unsubscribe in bulk.

Sources#

• SaneBox
• SaneBox pricing
• SaneBox tour
• SaneBox help: How does SaneBox work?
• SaneBox help: Can SaneBox read my email?
• SaneBox help: Email Deep Clean
• SaneBox help: SaneBlackHole
• SaneBox help: Training SaneBox
• SaneBox on Trustpilot
• SaneBox on Wikipedia
• SaneBox review (third-party cross-check of prices and features, September 2026)