DavMail Review, Pricing & Features

DavMail is a free, open-source gateway that connects any POP, IMAP, SMTP, CalDAV, or CardDAV email client to Microsoft Exchange or Office 365.

Category
Communication
Pricing
Free/Open Source, from Free
Verified
Not yet
Last updated
July 18, 2026
Founded
2006
WindowsAPIOpen SourceSelf-HostedMac

Overview

DavMail is a free, open-source gateway that sits between a user's email client and a Microsoft Exchange or Microsoft 365 mailbox. Instead of requiring Outlook or proprietary MAPI connections, it exposes standard POP, IMAP, SMTP, CalDAV, CardDAV, and LDAP interfaces locally and translates those requests into Exchange Web Services, WebDAV, or Microsoft Graph API calls behind the scenes.

The project has been maintained by developer Mickael Guessant for close to two decades, released under the GPL-2.0 license, and distributed as a cross-platform Java application that runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows.

Key Features

DavMail supports full mailbox access over IMAP and POP, outbound mail over SMTP, calendar sync (including free/busy lookups) over CalDAV, contact sync over CardDAV, and corporate directory search over LDAP -- covering nearly everything a native Exchange client would provide.

Recent releases have added an experimental Microsoft Graph backend, interactive OAuth2 login for Microsoft 365 tenants that enforce MFA, restored NTLM authentication, and packaging improvements for Linux distributions, keeping the tool current as Microsoft phases out legacy Exchange endpoints.

Pricing

DavMail is completely free and open-source with no paid tier, subscription, or license fee. There is no commercial entity behind it and no enterprise support contract; users rely on community forums, mailing lists, and the SourceForge issue tracker for help.

Because there is no cost barrier, the only real investment is setup time -- configuring local ports, client account settings, and authentication for the target Exchange or Microsoft 365 tenant.

Key Features

Pros & Cons

Pros

  • Completely free and open-source with no licensing cost
  • Lets Linux and non-Outlook users work with Exchange/Office 365 using their preferred mail client
  • Actively maintained with releases addressing Microsoft's protocol deprecations
  • No server-side installation or Exchange admin privileges required

Cons

  • Requires manual technical setup (ports, client accounts, authentication)
  • No official vendor support or SLA -- community-driven only
  • Depends on Microsoft continuing to expose EWS/WebDAV/Graph endpoints DavMail relies on
  • Interface is protocol-level only; there is no graphical management dashboard

Pricing

Frequently Asked Questions

Is DavMail free to use?

Yes. DavMail is fully free and open-source under the GPL-2.0 license, with no paid tier or subscription.

Does DavMail work with Microsoft 365 as well as on-premise Exchange?

Yes, DavMail supports both on-premise Exchange servers and cloud-hosted Microsoft 365 mailboxes, including OAuth2/MFA login flows for O365 tenants.

What email clients can I use with DavMail?

Any client that supports POP, IMAP, SMTP, CalDAV, CardDAV, or LDAP, including Thunderbird, Apple Mail, Apple Calendar and Contacts, Evolution, and KMail.

Do I need admin access to my company's Exchange server?

No. DavMail runs entirely on your own computer and connects using your normal mailbox credentials, so no server-side changes or admin rights are needed.

Is DavMail still actively maintained?

Yes, the project has shipped multiple releases in 2025 including an experimental Microsoft Graph API backend to stay compatible as Microsoft deprecates older Exchange protocols.

What operating systems does DavMail support?

DavMail is a Java application distributed for Linux, macOS, and Windows, with native installers and packages for each platform.

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