What is a newsletter reader?

Q: Does Letterwire need access to my Gmail or Outlook account?

No. Letterwire gives you your own email address ending in @letterwire.app. You subscribe with that address, so newsletters are delivered to Letterwire directly. It never connects to your existing mailbox and cannot read your other mail.

A newsletter reader is an app that keeps email newsletters out of your inbox and puts them somewhere built for reading. Letterwire is one.

Newsletters are the only thing in your inbox you actually chose. They still end up buried between calendar invites, receipts and work threads — read in the same two-minute gaps you use to triage everything else. A newsletter reader separates the two: your mail stays your mail, and your reading gets its own place.

How Letterwire works

1. You get your own Letterwire address

Signing up gives you an address ending in @letterwire.app. It is a real email address, not an integration.

2. Subscribe with it

Use that address when you sign up for any newsletter. Because it is ordinary email, it works with any publication that sends email — Substack, Ghost, beehiiv, ConvertKit, a personal mailing list, a newspaper's briefing. The publisher doesn't need to know Letterwire exists.

3. Read in the app

Issues arrive in Letterwire on iOS, Android and the web. Bookmark what you want to keep, label things, search back through what you've read, and browse the directory when you want something new.

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The part most people care about

Letterwire never connects to your Gmail or Outlook account. It has no access to your existing mailbox, because newsletters are sent to a Letterwire address directly rather than pulled out of your inbox. Some readers work the other way around — worth knowing which you're choosing.

How the main options differ

The apps in this category split on one question: does the reader come to your mailbox, or do newsletters go to the reader?

	Letterwire	Meco	Readwise Reader
How newsletters arrive	Your own @letterwire.app address	Connects to Gmail / Outlook	Forwarding address + RSS + saved articles
Needs mailbox access	No	Yes	No
Works with any publisher	Yes — it's a real email address	Yes, within a connected inbox	Yes
Newsletter directory	Yes, ~700 publications	Yes	No
Also reads web articles	No — newsletters only	No	Yes
Platforms	iOS, Android, web	iOS, Android, web	iOS, Android, web

Competitor details are from their public app-store listings and websites, last checked 4 August 2026. Spotted something out of date? Tell us and we'll correct it.

Which one suits you

You already have newsletters in Gmail and want them sorted where they are — Meco is the more direct fit, since it reads the inbox you already use.
You want one place for newsletters, articles, PDFs and highlights — Readwise Reader is a research tool as much as a reader.
You want newsletters kept entirely separate from your email, and you'd rather not hand an app access to your mailbox — that's what Letterwire is for.

Common questions

Does Letterwire need access to my Gmail or Outlook account?

No. You subscribe with your @letterwire.app address, so newsletters are delivered to Letterwire directly. It never connects to your existing mailbox and cannot read your other mail.

Can I use it with newsletters that aren't on Substack?

Yes. Your Letterwire address is an ordinary email address, so it works with anything that sends email. No integration with the publisher is needed.

What happens to newsletters I'm already subscribed to?

Change your delivery address with the publisher — most have a one-click way to do it in the footer of any issue — and future issues arrive in Letterwire instead.

Find something to read

Our newsletter directory covers around 700 publications: what each one writes about, how often it actually publishes, and its recent issues.

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