I didn’t know they stored local copies — had a very, VERY quick skim through their privacy policy on their website and couldn’t see any reference to that (sure it’s there but I didn’t see it).

I’m not a Spark user btw, was just following the conversation. I use plain ol’ Apple Mail.

I could be misinformed, but this isn’t just limited to Spark as I understand it, I believe a lot (maybe all?) third-party clients do the same thing. They act as an intermediary between you and the server so they can deliver push notifications.

However, as I understand it, Spark’s privacy policy outlines that they don’t read/scan the contents of your emails, and the use of app-specific passwords rather than your email password ensures they only have access to emails and nothing else.

Pretty sure others such as Canary, Airmail, Edison, etc. all do/did the same thing, but it was the lack of clarity in Spark’s privacy policy that made them the main target for scrutiny. I think they’ve since cleared that up.

I could be mistaken, though.