Email client K-9 Mail will become Thunderbird for Android
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As someone who has used both the K-9 client years ago back when I first got into Android, and now for the past 5 years, the "Nine" email client (by 9folders) which costs $10 (and is VERY worth it, IMO because it can do Exchange/ActiveSync protocols and is far superior to the Android Outlook application)... this pleases me. K-9 was great if you really hate paying software devs for their work, and I'm glad it was out there - but speaking as a huge fan of Nine mail, I'm not sorry to see the confusion of "Nine? or K-9" go away and K-9 become Thunderbird, which is the only email client I use on desktop.
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Did you have a problem with https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... code.email
It is maintained OSS and the developer is a trusted privacy advocate who also runs Netguard (a high quality no root firewall).
I used to use it before I got gifted a Proton Mail account and was happy with it.
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As with a few others upthread, I am a longtime dual K-9/Thunderbird user, so unifying these two is music to my ears.
Email clients are never going to be sexy or cutting edge, but the big players (looking at you Google and MS) treat theirs as components of a larger "ecosystem" at the expense of basic functionality while at the same engaging in endless feature creep. Something that just gets the job done and has a reliable user interface can be awfully hard to find, and seeing these two team up gives me faith that both will continue to work well for a long time.
Email clients are never going to be sexy or cutting edge, but the big players (looking at you Google and MS) treat theirs as components of a larger "ecosystem" at the expense of basic functionality while at the same engaging in endless feature creep. Something that just gets the job done and has a reliable user interface can be awfully hard to find, and seeing these two team up gives me faith that both will continue to work well for a long time.
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I'm a bit wary of this move.
I have been using K-9 mail for over a decade. Last year sometime cketti pushed out a new update that changed the main interface of the client removing one of its most useful features, an overview screen of all your multiple accounts.
Despite much negative feedback [https://forum.k9mail.app/search?q=overview] from the large K-9 userbase, the maintainer just replied that it wasn't how he used it and so he wouldn't replace the feature. Eventually he deigned to add it to some distant future roadmap.
I love Thunderbird too and would hate to see this guy ruin another email client. He seems to have the air of Poettering/Apple about him in how he relates to his users.
I have been using K-9 mail for over a decade. Last year sometime cketti pushed out a new update that changed the main interface of the client removing one of its most useful features, an overview screen of all your multiple accounts.
Despite much negative feedback [https://forum.k9mail.app/search?q=overview] from the large K-9 userbase, the maintainer just replied that it wasn't how he used it and so he wouldn't replace the feature. Eventually he deigned to add it to some distant future roadmap.
I love Thunderbird too and would hate to see this guy ruin another email client. He seems to have the air of Poettering/Apple about him in how he relates to his users.
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How many years? It wasn't supporting it when AT&T started requiring it. I think that was only two or three years ago.
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K-9 user for about seven years, here. I don't advertise it because, honestly, it's hard to recommend to just about anyone. It can take a significant commitment to configure it to your liking, and at least when I started using it it was very easy to configure it in a manner which would either fail to fetch mail promptly, or use tons of power.
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I have to use Gmail via the webmail client for work and, even after 3 years, it is just painful. For work stuff, Outlook is better than Thunderbird, but both are just leaps and bounds better than Gmail. I know that there are lots of people who think just the opposite...but man do I have trouble understanding how.
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They're pretty terrible for real IMAP usage. Most don't allow you to do things like configure the sent/deleted folders, but assume their idea of the "right" ones because there is no standard.
common pairings are:
* Sent/Trash
* Sent Items/Deleted Items (Thanks, Microsoft)
* Sent Messages/Deleted Messages (Apple)
* sent-messages (Pine!)
...and so on. Apple does allow you to configure the folders from the default, Thunderbird does too. K9 does as well.
The only annoyance I have with Thunderbird is its autoconfiguration. It works perfectly for setting server details, but it doesn't allow you to set the defaults for folders, so every time I configure Thunderbird, it adds the account perfectly, offers to add my address book and calendar by Carddav/Caldav... and then I have to fiddle with the folder settings.
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Aquamail is maintained, and it's pretty solid--the best choice I've found on Android anyway, and I tried quite a few along the way (including K-9).
I would have placed K-9 as a solid second place choice behind Aquamail, if you asked me to rank general-purpose Android mail clients (not specialty stuff like Outlook for Android).
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Outlook desktop client can be configured to pair which folder on the client is which folder on the server. Unfortunately it's Android client doesn't.
That said I use Outlook for Android or Nine email client for the phone since Exchange is pretty important to me.
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T-bird started supporting OAuth2 for Gmail accounts starting with v38, in 2015. Maybe it took longer to support it on other services.
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Outlook may, but the mail client bundled with Windows doesn't.
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K9 Mail was my goto email client for many years. I eventually decided to stop waiting for them to implement OAUTH2 -- it clearly was something that wasn't high on their list to actually get done... So about 2 years ago I then moved to Fairmail, another open source app, under very active development with a very responsive developer, with full OAUTH2 support. I'm been quite happy with it.
I see that K9 got OAUTH2 support in the last couple of weeks. Good for them! I'm happy that, in the future, K9 Mail will be a good alternative if I ever decide I'm unhappy with Fairmail.
I see that K9 got OAUTH2 support in the last couple of weeks. Good for them! I'm happy that, in the future, K9 Mail will be a good alternative if I ever decide I'm unhappy with Fairmail.
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I used a few alternatives while I was trying to stay away from Google apps, but have since given in and reverted to the official android app from the Play Store. I am very pleased to hear that K9 is going to be developed further, it seemed to be stuck in the android 4/5 days, back when I could remember names like Ice Cream Sandwich and Lollipop. I would very much like to try again without Google on my next upgrade.
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It's always been because I had no choices (worth while) for an e-mail client on my phone that I've never once used my phone for e-mail.
Since Windows XP and when Outlook Express was depreciated, I've used Thunderbird for my e-mail client. Putting that with all of its functionality on a phone would have been great back in the day.
Today, I it's kind of moot since I rarely leave the house anymore. But for those like me who still have a big need for a decent e-mail client on Android, this is great news.
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The big thing that was missing from Thunderbird was OAuth2, which was keeping it from properly supporting Gmail. But for quite a while now, long enough I don't even remember when it got added, it supports OAuth2, so I'm pretty sure it will work with pretty much any email service.
Despite my occasional musing about getting a Titan I still run a Key2, so on Android I just use the BlackBerry Hub client.
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I have been using K-9 as my primary email client for my own servers for as long as I can remember. It didn't look maintained at times but if you followed the GitHub project it had much more releases. It's one of the first things I put on any Android device.
I wish there was K-9 for iOS because Apple Mail is annoying and there are no good open mail clients for iOS.
I used to use ThunderBird everywhere but ever since web mail got popular and since I have to have web mail tabs open all the time anyway it was easier just to do my own web mail using RoundCube. Thunderbird would just be extra memory and resources.
The K-9 name and logo has always annoyed the hell out of me though. Not sure why, I just don't like it at all.
I wish there was K-9 for iOS because Apple Mail is annoying and there are no good open mail clients for iOS.
I used to use ThunderBird everywhere but ever since web mail got popular and since I have to have web mail tabs open all the time anyway it was easier just to do my own web mail using RoundCube. Thunderbird would just be extra memory and resources.
The K-9 name and logo has always annoyed the hell out of me though. Not sure why, I just don't like it at all.
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Used to be the decent mail client back when everybody had their own. Now, I haven't heard of it in years. But it's a good start I imagine. Exchange support plz.
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You can also get fairmail via github apk and have oauth support.
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I used K-9 for years, but then it went unmaintained for a long period of time.
I switched to Fairemail about a year ago. It is dramatically better than K-9. Looks nicer. Functions better. The developer is a really good guy.
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I agree 100%. K-9 had a sophisticated configuration system that would let you do complicated things. But for basic setup it was difficult and confusing.
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Well, dang! I've been hobbling along using Gmail for my IMAP needs, and it does the job with plenty of annoyances. Perhaps I will give this a shot! Definitely a Mozilla supporter, and have been using Thunderbird happily for years. That said it sounds like there are a few other well regarded trustworthy apps that I should look into, too. I've already been using Netguard, FairEmail sounds like an interesting option...
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My personal experience with FairEmail. I have never found a single bug in the program. I had a situation where I was not receiving some emails and I suspected a bug. I wrote to the support address and described the problem. I got a response from the developer within 5 minutes telling me that I probably had a configuration option set improperly. He was correct. I had somehow checked an invalid option--probably with a wayward finger tap.
That was the best tech support experience I have had in years.
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I've been using it for about that long myself, and I'm afraid that I don't recognize that complaint. There is still the Unified Inbox view, and all of the accounts are visible and select-able in the menu. What "overview screen". Perhaps I should just be happy that I don't know what I'm missing.
I'm less certain about Thunderbird. When it was part of Mozilla I remember it being clunky and ugly, and made me use Sylpheed instead, until I switched to macOS where I've been (mostly) happy with AppleMail.
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Dark Steve
Ars Scholae Palatinae
It's even worse than that.
Yes, google scans everything stored in your gmail account, even after they claimed they'd stop. Even Ars reported "but for how long" will they stop, and google itself claimed they'd resume reading your emails "to meet challenging demands".
But google also lets hundreds of external companies read your mail now. This means that google does sell your personal information to advertisers. Don't let anyone tell you different. Google's own TOS and Privacy Policy state they "share" your information with business partners. Yeah, "shared" under commercial agreements.
And it's not like they've got your medical data or anything, but it's OK, they won't use it to monetise you /s
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I hope you are right. As a long time K9 user, but having not used Thunderbird for some time, because of Mozilla's lack of interest, even though they seemed to realise Thunderbird was their responsibility a few years back, I do hope K9 doesn't get flung under the bus of Mozilla's business plan du jour.
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Dark Steve
Ars Scholae Palatinae
Emphasis on that last quote was mine.
There's a lot of people claiming K-9 went unmaintained. I've been using it since the Cyanogenmod days, and I was never under the impression it was unmaintained at any point. Gaps in releases doesn't mean it was abandoned.
I'm cautiously optimistic about the merge/rebrand. I've been using Thunderbird since Seamonkey stagnated (and even Seamonkey is still maintained!), and K-9 since first installing Cyanogenmod. Better linking and consistency between the two should be a good thing, but history doesn't always bear that out.
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Also a K-9 User. I find it works well with the subfolders and rules I set up on my email server. It's not exciting, but it does the job, which is what I need it to do
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I also vote for Aquamail. I have no problem paying for apps as long as the price is right and the app is actually worth using and Aquamail definitely fits both of those; it's got lots of features, it offers lots of configurability, it works great with multiple different email-accounts, it's rock-solid and it's fast as well -- what's not to like?
I did try a lot of different options before landing on Aquamail, actually, and I haven't felt the need to look any further since then.
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There's no android standard mail app, but mobile Gmail as well as mobile Outlook are available to handle any POP3/IMAP account.
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Same here. I’m a former heavy Thunderbird user who has more or less migrated completely to the Fastmail web client on desktop. I need to use Outlook for some work accounts and I reckon Fastmail is much better - particularly when it comes to filing/moving/copying emails around my enormous 30 year collection of email folders.
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there's actually FairEmail, which is free and open source and very cool
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Thunderbird does support OAuth2, at least on the major mail providers. But due to OAuth2 being the anti-standard it is, it's hard to say it will work with all services.
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As a user of both Thunderbird and K-9, I'm glad this is happening. It's probably been triggered by the OAuth2 wows K-9 has had, and how hard that is to maintain (not enough licenses to enable Google's OAuth from GiHub, Google Play Store and F-Droid; each OAuth2 service requiring its own tweaked implementation...).
I'm sure K-9 has recently bled a lot of users because of Google's scary "untrusted app" messaging, which could have been avoided had this agreement, or help, come sooner. But, in the long run, both Thunderbird and K-9 will surely benefit from this.
Free email clients need all the support they can get, because Google and Microsoft are making things really hard for the small players.
I'm sure K-9 has recently bled a lot of users because of Google's scary "untrusted app" messaging, which could have been avoided had this agreement, or help, come sooner. But, in the long run, both Thunderbird and K-9 will surely benefit from this.
Free email clients need all the support they can get, because Google and Microsoft are making things really hard for the small players.
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As others said above, the setup and config is not very user friendly. Maybe due to that, I failed to configure it properly or some other underlying problem, but I found K-9 to be very battery hungry, which is why I eventually stopped using it. Hopefully this merger will improve that aspect and put more focus on user-facing polish and optimized default settings while retaining all of its advanced customizable options. The two doesn't need to be mutually exclusive.
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I really like the current K9 UI stuff so I hope the Thunderbird adaptation doesn't go too far toward something else. One of the most important things for me is the ability to set different colors to different mailboxes, and have this also apply to the notifications you get. Being able to see at a glance even while barely awake if an e-mail is private or work related is big for me.
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Sorry for the almost completely unrelated question, but it's the sort of thing I always want to ask but never remember to when there are multiple people around to answer.
When you see the word FAQ, what does it sound like in your head?
Do you hear a single word, like f*ck but with an "a", or do you hear it spelled out, like "Eff-Ay-Queue"?
No right or wrong answer, just really curious as to how others hear it.
When you see the word FAQ, what does it sound like in your head?
Do you hear a single word, like f*ck but with an "a", or do you hear it spelled out, like "Eff-Ay-Queue"?
No right or wrong answer, just really curious as to how others hear it.
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