Install Tundra and connect your first account

Tundra is in open beta, and a few screens between the download and your inbox come from Apple, Microsoft or Google. This guide shows each one and what to press.

Download

The download page offers macOS (Apple silicon and Intel), Windows and Linux. Each file is under 45 MB. macOS is where Tundra is used every day and tested most. Linux is tested by us with every release. Windows ships with every release too and is newer to our testing, so if something looks wrong there, write to info@tundra-mail.com.

Each file on the releases page has a SHA-256 checksum and a minisign signature next to it. To check the checksum, run shasum -a 256 on the file (macOS), sha256sum (Linux) or Get-FileHash in PowerShell (Windows), and compare the result with the matching .sha256 file.

macOS: the Gatekeeper warning

Tundra is not notarized by Apple yet, so the first time you open it macOS refuses and shows a warning.

Drag Tundra to Applications and open it once. Close the warning.
Open System Settings → Privacy & Security.
Scroll down to the message about Tundra and click Open Anyway.
Confirm with your password or Touch ID.

You do this once. Later updates arrive inside Tundra, which checks each update's signature and installs it only when you click Install update, then Restart & update.

Windows: SmartScreen

The installer is not code-signed yet, so Windows may show a SmartScreen warning. Choose More info, then Run anyway.

Linux

Pick the AppImage, the .deb or the .tar.gz, for amd64 or arm64. Tundra needs webkit2gtk 4.1, and a Secret Service keyring (GNOME Keyring or KWallet, for example) to store passwords.

Connect an account

The first screen reads "Welcome to Tundra." and "Connect your first email account." There are four tiles: Gmail, Outlook, IMAP ("Any mail server") and CalDAV ("iCloud or server calendar", marked Early beta).

Gmail and Outlook open your browser to sign in. Tundra listens on your own computer for the answer, so no server of ours sits in between. When the browser says "You're signed in", go back to Tundra. IMAP and CalDAV use a password, which Tundra keeps in your system keychain.

Gmail and Google's unverified-app screen

Google has not finished verifying Tundra's Gmail sign-in, so Google shows a page saying it hasn't verified this app. To continue, choose Advanced, then the link to go to the app. On the page that lists what Tundra may access, tick Select all; Tundra needs mail, calendar and contacts to work.

While an app is unverified, Google lets only 100 people sign in to it. If that limit is reached, or the built-in sign-in is paused, Tundra says so and offers two other ways in: your own Google project, or an app password (Gmail over IMAP).

Gmail through your own Google Cloud project

On the first screen, the Bring your own keys row reads "Connect Gmail through a Google Cloud project you own." Click Set up. Tundra walks you through six pages of the Google Cloud console, each with a direct link:

Create a project
Turn on Gmail, Calendar and People
Set up sign-in
Add branding
Publish
Create a Desktop client

It takes about five minutes, once. Download the client file at step 6 before you press OK, because Google shows the secret only once; Tundra picks up client_secret_*.json from your Downloads folder by itself. Before opening the browser, Tundra checks the client with Google and shows "Verified with Google" when it is ready. Google will still show its unverified-app page, since the app is your own and unreviewed: choose Advanced, then Go to Tundra Mail, and tick Select all. Skip the Publish step and Google signs you out every seven days.

Outlook and Microsoft 365

Choose Outlook and sign in with Microsoft. Personal Outlook.com accounts and work or school accounts both work. Some organisations only allow apps their admin has approved; if you see a message about that, your admin needs to allow Tundra. There is no unverified-app screen here.

IMAP and CalDAV

Enter your address and Tundra looks up the server settings, including iCloud, Yahoo and Fastmail. Use an app password where your provider offers one. If you only want to read mail, Continue with incoming mail only skips the outgoing server. CalDAV adds a calendar from iCloud, Fastmail or another standards-based server, and it is in early beta.

What setup asks you

After the account, Tundra asks a few questions. Every step starts on a sensible default, and Enter keeps it.

How should Tundra look? Match my system, Always dark or Always light, a theme, and a size.
Which end of the story first? Newest messages first, or oldest.
Who sees you reading? "Private by default" loads pictures with the email but skips images that look like tracking pixels; "Lock it down" holds every picture until you ask, per email or per sender. If you want no sender to learn when you opened a message, choose Lock it down.
When you hit Send: Send Lock, on to start, asks for a second press a moment later so a slip gets caught. Every send also holds for five seconds so you can take it back.
Your week, your clock: 12 or 24 hour, the first day of the week, and whether to show declined events.
AI, if you want it: Set up AI, or Not now. Tundra works fully without AI.
Talk instead of type: dictation, off until you turn it on.

The last page, "Your Tundra.", lists your choices, including what happens when you close the window. By default closing the window quits Tundra and sync stops until you open it again. Click Open Tundra. You can run the whole setup again from Settings → General.

After setup

Your mail starts to download to your computer. Once it has, press ⌘K and ask "when is my next meeting?".

Everything lives in one folder: ~/.tundra-mail on macOS, %LOCALAPPDATA%\Tundra Mail on Windows, ~/.local/share/tundra-mail on Linux. Passwords and sign-in tokens are in your system keychain, under the name tundra-mail. Delete the folder and those keychain entries, and Tundra forgets your mail, accounts and settings. A few display preferences stay in the system's web view storage.