Bichon is a minimal, high-performance, standalone Rust email archiver with a built-in WebUI.
Its name is inspired by the puppy my daughter adopted last month.
It runs as a single binary, requires no external dependencies, and provides fast, efficient email archiving, management, and search.
## 🚀 Features
### ⚡ Lightweight & Standalone
- Pure Rust, single-machine application.
- No external database required.
- Includes **WebUI** for intuitive management.
### 📬 Multi-Account Management
- Synchronize and download emails from multiple accounts.
- Flexible selection: by **date range**, **number of emails**, or **specific mailboxes**.
### 🔑 IMAP & OAuth2 Authentication
- Supports **IMAP password** or **OAuth2** login.
- Built-in WebUI for **OAuth2 authorization**, including **automatic token refresh** (e.g., Gmail, Outlook).
- Supports **network proxy** for IMAP and OAuth2.
- Automatic IMAP server discovery and configuration.
### 🔍 Unified Multi-Account Search
- Powerful search across all accounts:
**account**, **mailbox**, **sender**, **attachment name**, **has attachments**, **size**, **date**, **subject**, **body**.
### 🏷️ Tags & Facets
- Organize archived emails using **tags** backed by Tantivy **facets**.
- Efficiently filter and locate emails based on these facet-based tags.
### 💾 Compressed & Deduplicated Storage
- Store emails efficiently with **transparent compression** and **deduplication**—emails can be read directly without any extra steps.
### 📂 Email Management & Viewing
- Bulk cleanup of local archives.
- Download emails as **EML** or **attachments separately**.
- View and browse emails directly.
- View the full **conversation thread** of any email.
### 📊 Dashboard & Analytics
- Visualize email statistics: **counts**, **time distribution**, **top senders**, **largest emails**, **account rankings**.
### 🛠️ OpenAPI Support
- Provides **OpenAPI documentation**.
- **Access token authentication** for programmatic access.
## 🐾 Why Create Bichon?
A few months ago, I released **rustmailer**, an email API middleware:
https://github.com/rustmailer/rustmailer
Since then, I’ve received many emails asking whether it could also archive emails, perform unified search, and support full-text indexing—not just querying recipients.
But rustmailer was designed as a middleware focused on providing API services.
Adding archiving and full-text search would complicate its core purpose and go far beyond its original scope.
Meanwhile, I realized that email archiving itself only requires a small portion of rustmailer’s functionality, plus a search engine.
With that combination, building a dedicated, efficient archiver becomes much simpler.
Using the experience gained from rustmailer, I designed and built **Bichon** in less than two weeks, followed by another two weeks of testing and optimization.
It has now reached a stable, usable state—and I decided to release it publicly.
**Bichon is completely free**.
You can download and use it however you like.
It’s not perfect, but I hope it brings you value.
## 📸 Snapshot
## 🚀 Quick Start
### Docker Deployment (Recommended)
```bash
# Pull the image
docker pull rustmailer/bichon:latest
# Create data directory
mkdir -p ./bichon-data
# Run container
docker run -d \
--name bichon \
-p 15630:15630 \
-v $(pwd)/bichon-data:/data \
-e BICHON_LOG_LEVEL=info \
-e BICHON_ROOT_DIR=/data \
rustmailer/bichon:latest
```
* If you are accessing Bichon on the same machine where it is installed (Machine A), open:
```
http://localhost:15630
```
* If you are accessing Bichon from another machine (Machine B), make sure to set CORS with the IP of Machine B, for example:
```bash
# Run container
docker run -d \
--name bichon \
-p 15630:15630 \
-v $(pwd)/bichon-data:/data \
-e BICHON_LOG_LEVEL=info \
-e BICHON_ROOT_DIR=/data \
-e BICHON_CORS_ORIGINS="http://localhost:15630,http://B_MACHINE_IP:15630,*" \
rustmailer/bichon:latest
```
Access instructions:
This allows Machine B to access the Bichon interface on Machine A via a browser.
### Binary Deployment
Download the appropriate binary for your platform from the [Releases](https://github.com/rustmailer/bichon/releases) page:
- Linux (GNU): `bichon-x.x.x-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz`
- Linux (MUSL): `bichon-x.x.x-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl.tar.gz`
- macOS: `bichon-x.x.x-x86_64-apple-darwin.tar.gz`
- Windows: `bichon-x.x.x-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc.zip`
Extract and run:
```bash
# Linux/macOS
./bichon --bichon-root-dir /tmp/bichon-data
# Windows
.\bichon.exe --bichon-root-dir e:\bichon-data
```
## 📖 Documentation
> Under construction. Documentation will be available soon.
## 🛠️ Tech Stack
- **Backend**: Rust + Poem
- **Frontend**: React + TypeScript + Vite + ShadCN
- **Storage**: Native_DB
- **Search Engine**: Tantivy
- **Email Protocols**: IMAP (Password & OAuth2)
## 🤝 Contributing
Issues and Pull Requests are welcome!
## 🧑💻 Developer Guide
To build or contribute to Bichon, the following environment is recommended:
### Prerequisites
- **Rust**: Use the latest stable toolchain for best compatibility and performance.
- **Node.js**: Version **20+** is required.
- **pnpm**: Recommended package manager for the WebUI.
### Steps
#### 1. Clone the repository
```bash
git clone https://github.com/rustmailer/bichon.git
cd bichon
````
#### 2. Build the WebUI
```bash
cd web
pnpm install
pnpm run build
```
Run the WebUI in development mode if needed:
```bash
pnpm run dev
```
#### 3. Build or Run the Backend
After the WebUI is built, return to the project root:
```bash
cd ..
cargo build
```
Or run directly:
```bash
cargo run -- --bichon-root-dir e:\bichon-data
```
`--bichon-root-dir` specifies the directory where **all Bichon data** will be stored.
### WebUI Access
* The WebUI runs on **[http://localhost:15630](http://localhost:15630)** by default.
* **HTTPS is not enabled** in development or default builds.
## 📄 License
This project is licensed under [AGPLv3](LICENSE).
## 🔗 Links
- [Official Website](https://rustmailer.com)
- [Docker Hub](https://hub.docker.com/r/rustmailer/bichon)
- [Issue Tracker](https://github.com/rustmailer/bichon/issues)
- [Discord](https://discord.gg/evFnSpdpaE)
---
Made with ❤️ by rustmailer.com
