Email client K-9 Mail will become Thunderbird for Android

K-9's project maintainer will join the Thunderbird team.

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[Jeff S]

This is good. I've been struggling with the fact that there's not really a good, free, trustworthy, maintained local mail client for Android.

So, I've just been logging into webmail using Chrome, for my email checking needs, but I'd rather have a POP3/IMAP client.

I thought about using K-9, but wasn't real familiar with it, and it seemed to be unmaintained, I thought.

 

[miken32]

Possibly dumb question from an iPhone user – is an email client not part of the base Android software? Or is it just too basic to be useful to some people?

I used to use Thunderbird, but it's been easily 5 or 6 years since I've done anything other than use Gmail's web interface, or the built-in mail app on my phone.

 

[luisgp]

Last time I checked, a few months ago, Thunderbird was being spun out of the Mozilla foundation, has this changed more recently?

I think it's great that K9 and Thunderbird are integrating. Both have been my workhorses for many years.

 

[Eurynom0s]

Huh, K-9. I think I had that waaaaaay back on my Motorola Droid X/X2 (broke the X and insurance sent me an X2 as a replacement).

 

[ChronoReverse]

Possibly dumb question from an iPhone user – is an email client not part of the base Android software? Or is it just too basic to be useful to some people?

I used to use Thunderbird, but it's been easily 5 or 6 years since I've done anything other than use Gmail's web interface, or the built-in mail app on my phone.

There used to be an AOSP one, not sure about it nowadays. Manufacturers like Samsung have their own of course. For Pixel phones (not limited to), the GMail app is able to connect to non-gmail accounts.

 

[aerogems]

I remember using K-9 years ago in the Android 2.x days. Good to see it's still around.

 

[Mungus the Unhyphenated]

Possibly dumb question from an iPhone user – is an email client not part of the base Android software? Or is it just too basic to be useful to some people?

I used to use Thunderbird, but it's been easily 5 or 6 years since I've done anything other than use Gmail's web interface, or the built-in mail app on my phone.

Google includes what's basically a PWA for Gmail on Android. Other than a small local browser-type cache, it's intended as an IMAP web client that keeps everything in Gmail cloud storage. With just enough local bits to act as a presentation layer and notification handler. It's fine as long as Google doesn't mess with it too much and move things around.

 

[aerogems]

Possibly dumb question from an iPhone user – is an email client not part of the base Android software? Or is it just too basic to be useful to some people?

I used to use Thunderbird, but it's been easily 5 or 6 years since I've done anything other than use Gmail's web interface, or the built-in mail app on my phone.

There used to be an AOSP one, not sure about it nowadays. Manufacturers like Samsung have their own of course. For Pixel phones (not limited to), the GMail app is able to connect to non-gmail accounts.

I'm about 99% sure Google abandoned the AOSP Mail app right around the same time they developed the Gmail app and that was around the time of Android 2.0-2.3. LineageOS (and its various predecessors) might have done some work to update it in the intervening years, but Google washed their hands of it years ago... Like almost every other AOSP app, which was replaced with a proprietary version that was foisted upon companies if they wanted access to the Play Store.

 

[Andrewcw]

The problem with K-9 is while it is a free program. There is no apparent way of how the project got funding to maintain its life other then direct donations.

Rebranding to Thunderbird and being absorbed opens up some path to that i guess. I people will be more willing to donate $5 for clients where the team works on a phone and desktop.

 

[MMarsh]

This is good. I've been struggling with the fact that there's not really a good, free, trustworthy, maintained local mail client for Android.

So, I've just been logging into webmail using Chrome, for my email checking needs, but I'd rather have a POP3/IMAP client.

I thought about using K-9, but wasn't real familiar with it, and it seemed to be unmaintained, I thought.

I used to use K-9 regularly, years ago, but yes — it seemed to be unmaintained, and when Fastmail's own client got to the point of not sucking, I didn't have much use for K-9 any longer.

I used to be quite fond of Thunderbird as well; it's been my daily driver since 2004. I still use it from time to time, although not as often as I use Fastmail's web client. Thunderbird feels like abandonware, though. It gets updates all the time, but none of them seem to change anything noticeable, including long-standing issues like its tendency to get confused by search terms and its unwillingness to play nicely with high-DPI font scaling. And I'd love to see proper JMAP support added.

I'm definitely glad to see some serious interest in a good, open-source mobile mail client. Google's own mobile Gmail client has some basic IMAP support, yes, but that app is just *crap* in so many ways. The hundred-plus free and commercial 3rd-party clients are impossible to sort through, and it seems that every single one of them is broken in some important way.

 

[gmerrick]

K-9 is my go to client for some emails I still use. Hope things work out well in the future for the app.

 

[Chemical Tribe]

K9 hasn't had much progress, but imo, didn't really need to. It had an ui overhaul sometime back, but still like the original look better.

K9 iirc is basically the aosp mail app forked.

 

[Jeff S]

Possibly dumb question from an iPhone user – is an email client not part of the base Android software? Or is it just too basic to be useful to some people?

I used to use Thunderbird, but it's been easily 5 or 6 years since I've done anything other than use Gmail's web interface, or the built-in mail app on my phone.

There used to be an AOSP one, not sure about it nowadays. Manufacturers like Samsung have their own of course. For Pixel phones (not limited to), the GMail app is able to connect to non-gmail accounts.

Yeah, but I think then GMail downloads and scans your non-gmail email? I'd like to keep them separate.

 

[ZenBeam]

I used Thunderbird for a long time, until a year or two ago it couldn't support att.net email. It didn't sound like any more Thunderbird updates were coming. I had to abandon it for Vivaldi browser which had a mail beta that would work. And now that's stopped working. I think that's because of a bug though, not the browser not supporting new email security protocols or whatever, which seems to be the issue with Thunderbird. But I'm concerned whether thus Android Thunderbird email is going to support them.

 

[agt499]

I am optimistic.
I want email clients to continue to exist, and Thunderbird remains my go-to for lots of reasons.

I haven't used K9 in years, on Android I find Aquamail to be the sort of powerful client that matches my needs.

If Thunderbird and K9 merge and get more focus that's awesome.
I'd especially like to see Thunderbird streamline its Calendar and Contact connection to other services.

 

[YetAnotherAnonymousAppellation]

I used K-9 for a while on my phone and tablet, but I eventually standardized on Gmail because the Android and Web versions have very similar interfaces and everything stays synced without a hassle. I'm not super thrilled with the Gmail interface, but I find the annoyance of differences between K-9 and Gmail outweighed the general annoyance with Gmail.

I used Thunderbird for years before I finally got annoyed at Google constantly griping about the "unsecure interface" and just switched to the web client. I know how to fix that now so, maybe, I'll go back if this integration of K*9 and T-bird works well.

 

[williamyf]

Last time I checked, a few months ago, Thunderbird was being spun out of the Mozilla foundation, has this changed more recently?

I think it's great that K9 and Thunderbird are integrating. Both have been my workhorses for many years.

AFAIK the mozilla foundation considered it, but then did a U-Turn.

What the mozilla foundation DID do, was to decouple thunderbird developement from firefox development AND they did rebase thunderbird on FireFox ESR (instead of being based on current firefox).

 

[agt499]

This is good. I've been struggling with the fact that there's not really a good, free, trustworthy, maintained local mail client for Android.

So, I've just been logging into webmail using Chrome, for my email checking needs, but I'd rather have a POP3/IMAP client.

I thought about using K-9, but wasn't real familiar with it, and it seemed to be unmaintained, I thought.

I find Aquamail good, maintained and local.
It can be free (which I think adds a signature) but I use the pro/paid version to support development.
As for trustworthy? I've had no reason to think otherwise, but it's hard to know. Mozilla should definitely have that advantage.

 

[nzeid]

I am a FairEmail power user precisely because K-9 just... was never good. I hope Thunderbird turns this into another powerful Android client that doesn't silo your passwords server-side or data mine.

 

[mmmmwmmmm]

This is good. I've been struggling with the fact that there's not really a good, free, trustworthy, maintained local mail client for Android.

So, I've just been logging into webmail using Chrome, for my email checking needs, but I'd rather have a POP3/IMAP client.

I thought about using K-9, but wasn't real familiar with it, and it seemed to be unmaintained, I thought.

Check out "fairemail"; it is open-source, and works with Oauth (I don't think K9 does, which is why I switched).

For Oauth, you need fairemail via playstore, not f-droid.

Edit -- no affiliation beyond being a satisfied user.

 

[bonob]

K-9 Mail is a great piece of software, and has been my mobile mail client for.. ~7 years I guess.

Granted, there was no update at all on F-Droid for a few years, but a year or two ago, they came back and do regular releases there now.

 

[ZenBeam]

This is good. I've been struggling with the fact that there's not really a good, free, trustworthy, maintained local mail client for Android.

So, I've just been logging into webmail using Chrome, for my email checking needs, but I'd rather have a POP3/IMAP client.

I thought about using K-9, but wasn't real familiar with it, and it seemed to be unmaintained, I thought.

Check out "fairemail"; it is open-source, and works with Oauth (I don't think K9 does, which is why I switched).

For Oauth, you need fairemail via playstore, not f-droid.

Edit -- no affiliation beyond being a satisfied user.

Oath is the problem I was running into. Does anyone know, does Thunderbird desktop support that now? Will this one support it?

 

[GregV]

I'm happy about this as a long time K-9 user, that it will be getting financial and probably development support going forward. It has a few rough edges but is a powerful app. It's surprisingly hard to find apps that support multiple sender identities from the same account (so I can reply with support@mydomain.com or myname@mydomain.com, either manually or based on who the original e-mail was sent to.) It also lets me have different sync and notification settings per folder, which isn't the most intuitive thing to configure but it's nice once you do it, especially if you sort e-mail into different folders automatically server-side like I do.

I'm also a long time Thunderbird user and it's... okay. Has all the features I mentioned which prevents me from moving to something else even if it could use some more polish, though it's been getting better.

 

[mmmmwmmmm]

This is good. I've been struggling with the fact that there's not really a good, free, trustworthy, maintained local mail client for Android.

So, I've just been logging into webmail using Chrome, for my email checking needs, but I'd rather have a POP3/IMAP client.

I thought about using K-9, but wasn't real familiar with it, and it seemed to be unmaintained, I thought.

Check out "fairemail"; it is open-source, and works with Oauth (I don't think K9 does, which is why I switched).

For Oauth, you need fairemail via playstore, not f-droid.

Edit -- no affiliation beyond being a satisfied user.

Oath is the problem I was running into. Does anyone know, does Thunderbird desktop support that now? Will this one support it?

Yes, thunderbird + oauth2 works for me. I remember it being slightly annoying to set up, but it now works well.

 

[stodge]

I got a message that FairEmail was no longer under development, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Did the developer reverse his decision to kill the product?

Edit: may still be in flux but it may still be under development.

https://faircode.eu/faq.html

 

[eszklar]

This is good. I've been struggling with the fact that there's not really a good, free, trustworthy, maintained local mail client for Android.

So, I've just been logging into webmail using Chrome, for my email checking needs, but I'd rather have a POP3/IMAP client.

I thought about using K-9, but wasn't real familiar with it, and it seemed to be unmaintained, I thought.

I use FairEmail myself.

 

[ZenBeam]

This is good. I've been struggling with the fact that there's not really a good, free, trustworthy, maintained local mail client for Android.

So, I've just been logging into webmail using Chrome, for my email checking needs, but I'd rather have a POP3/IMAP client.

I thought about using K-9, but wasn't real familiar with it, and it seemed to be unmaintained, I thought.

Check out "fairemail"; it is open-source, and works with Oauth (I don't think K9 does, which is why I switched).

For Oauth, you need fairemail via playstore, not f-droid.

Edit -- no affiliation beyond being a satisfied user.

Oath is the problem I was running into. Does anyone know, does Thunderbird desktop support that now? Will this one support it?

Yes, thunderbird + oauth2 works for me. I remember it being slightly annoying to set up, but it now works well.

Thanks. I'm going to try to figure that out in the next few days. Or maybe weeks.

 

[Teamsprocket]

K-9 is my go to email client on Android, and Thunderbird has been my go to email client on Desktop since inception.

I'm super happy about this.

 

[Teamsprocket]

Possibly dumb question from an iPhone user – is an email client not part of the base Android software? Or is it just too basic to be useful to some people?

I used to use Thunderbird, but it's been easily 5 or 6 years since I've done anything other than use Gmail's web interface, or the built-in mail app on my phone.

The de facto standard email client is Gmail, even for non Gmail email accounts.

 

[nzeid]

I got a message that FairEmail was no longer under development, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Did the developer reverse his decision to kill the product?

Edit: may still be in flux but it may still be under development.

https://faircode.eu/faq.html

This would have to be very recent because I've been seeing regular updates. GitHub is active as well.

 

[twothirdsanexplosive]

Possibly dumb question from an iPhone user – is an email client not part of the base Android software? Or is it just too basic to be useful to some people?

I used to use Thunderbird, but it's been easily 5 or 6 years since I've done anything other than use Gmail's web interface, or the built-in mail app on my phone.

The de facto standard email client is Gmail, even for non Gmail email accounts.

Yeah I use the stock gmail client as I only use google-based emails and have found it to do everything I need to do. I'm sure others have more sophisticated uses that prefer something else (or just not wanting to use Google).

I think this is more akin to how I install Firefox and Firefox Focus on my phone instead of using the default Chrome or if you installed Chrome instead of using Safari on your iPhone.

 

[dylane]

I'm surprised there aren't more current K-9 users on Ars. I've been using it for all of my non-work and non-Microsoft accounts on Android for many years. And Thunderbird for those same accounts on desktop, so this seems great to me. About the only thing I don't like about K-9 is is doesn't do a great job of remembering email addresses for people who have previously written, so I have to go and find and copy the address a lot of the time. But, on my personal accounts I get a lot more email than I send, so it hasn't been a huge issue.

 

[mmmmwmmmm]

I got a message that FairEmail was no longer under development, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Did the developer reverse his decision to kill the product?

Edit: may still be in flux but it may still be under development.

https://faircode.eu/faq.html

I'm not sure, but I get update notifications quite frequently.

 

[Deleted member 823177]

I'm surprised there aren't more current K-9 users on Ars. I've been using it for all of my non-work and non-Microsoft accounts on Android for many years. And Thunderbird for those same accounts on desktop, so this seems great to me. About the only thing I don't like about K-9 is is doesn't do a great job of remembering email addresses for people who have previously written, so I have to go and find and copy the address a lot of the time. But, on my personal accounts I get a lot more email than I send, so it hasn't been a huge issue.

K-9 is basically the only email client i ever used on Android - i looked for an alternative to Gmail when i got my first Android phone and K-9 was the one everyone recommended. i'm glad it's still around and seems to be doing well; sometimes i wonder if standalone email clients are on the way out entirely, with everyone moving to webmail.

 

[Donatzsky]

K9 iirc is basically the aosp mail app forked.

It was indeed a fork of the AOSP client. The idea was to develop new features that could then be integrated into AOSP. They quickly realised Google wasn't interested in that (surprise), and so continued it as a fully independent project.

 

[bthylafh]

This is good. I've been struggling with the fact that there's not really a good, free, trustworthy, maintained local mail client for Android.

So, I've just been logging into webmail using Chrome, for my email checking needs, but I'd rather have a POP3/IMAP client.

I thought about using K-9, but wasn't real familiar with it, and it seemed to be unmaintained, I thought.

FairEmail is pretty good. It's got a free and a paid version, I've been using the paid version for several years now.

 

[bthylafh]

Possibly dumb question from an iPhone user – is an email client not part of the base Android software? Or is it just too basic to be useful to some people?

Part of Android is AOSP, the Android Open Source Project, and part of it is the proprietary apps you get from the Play Store. There's been an AOSP email app forever, but it's been unmaintained for a really long time, almost nobody uses it, and it's not included with most phones. The "official" solution is to use the Gmail app instead.

 

[bthylafh]

Oath is the problem I was running into. Does anyone know, does Thunderbird desktop support that now? Will this one support it?

Yes, the desktop client has supported Oauth for many years.

 

[steelgrass]

Last time I checked, a few months ago, Thunderbird was being spun out of the Mozilla foundation, has this changed more recently?

No, it didn't change recently. It changed 5 years ago.

Wikipedia[/url]":81aq6tht]On May 9, 2017, Philipp Kewisch announced that the Mozilla Foundation would continue to serve as the legal and fiscal home for the Thunderbird project, but that Thunderbird would migrate off Mozilla Corporation infrastructure, separating the operational aspects of the project. Mozilla brought Thunderbird back in-house in an announcement on May 9, 2017, and continued to support its development. The Thunderbird development team expanded by adding several new members and overhauled security and the user interface.