FairEmail is a good choice to replace K9

I would love to continue with K9, but right now the new version is not usable.

I have exported and stored my settings. I will check here occasionally to see if the developers decide to update the app to reflect the widespread, fervent requests here for

  1. the return of action buttons on the bottom of the screen, and
  2. the option to have K9 open to an account overview screen.

In the meantime I have found that FairEmail is a very nice alternative and I have switched. Be aware there is a learning curve and some set-up time required, of course, and the visual design isn’t as nice as the new K9. I will be happy to switch back, but for now FairMail is the best email tool for me.

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I tried this last year when I realised development of K-9 appeared to be dead. Main issue for me was that polling 6 accounts took ages whereas with K-9 it takes seconds. Never did get to the bottom of it, FairEmail devs just blamed my servers even though no other mail client (mobile or desktop) had any issues checking the same 6 accounts almost instantaneously.

K-9 is still currently best of a bad bunch, I still can’t find a decent replacement. However, I’ve been reading these forums and they are removing POP from K-9 which will mean lots of people (me included) won’t be able to use it anyway. Hopefully @cketti looks at reversing this decision.

With Gmail (today, 30-May) forcing either OAuth or email app password (requiring 2FA across the entire google account just to get an email client working, no thanks) I have also switched to FairEmail.

For me the three step setup, which the first run of the app very clearly leads you through, was dead simple.

There are, as the OP mentions, many configuration options in FairEmail. Initially it doesn’t look like you have to delve into those very much, but it sure does have a lot of bells and whistles.

One note: with the Pro version of FairEmail it was a bit arcane to get per-account Notification sounds set up. Referencing an FAQ entry on this topic, those now work. Yes, Pro is required to have per-account Notifications. I was OK with the $6.49 one time price for Pro. I’m happy to support the developer this way.

Early days yet, so I don’t know how reliable it will be for me (instant notifs) but so far so good.

In particular, I eschew the Gmail android app because current incarnations [unless I’m missing something] don’t do instant notifications, i.e., IMAP PUSH. FairEmail, like k9, handles IMAP PUSH so instant notification of Gmail message arrival is available. (There are other things about the Gmail app I don’t like but we’ll leave those for another post.)


So the two main things I need: (1) OAuth to accomodate google’s password policy change happening today, and (2) instant notification (IMAP PUSH) seem to be working in FairEmail.

NB: FairEmail had a brief hiatus and left the Google Play store (removed by developer due to Google Play dorking him around) but the app is back in the Play store. At least it was when I installed from there earlier today.

Also, FairEmail is on github, so all the good interaction with devs usually provided there hopefully applies.

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I’ll definitely give it a try, bye bye k9.

EDIT: just trying now, thank you, a thousand times better than k9.

I had switched from K9 to Fairemail some months ago, after K9 temporarily did not support Imap Push for current Android versions. Now Fairemail left the Playstore for a while, and I tried K9 again. It does everything I need.

In K-9 you can’t move a message to a folder belonging to another account, but only to a folder belonging to the account it was sent to. In Fair Email this is possible. Furthermore, you have in K-9 only one option to forward a message (yo send it from the account it was sent to); in Fair Email you can option between all the accounts you have installed. Adding these possibilities would make K-9 perfect (at least for me)!

Furthermore, you have in K-9 only one option to forward a message (yo send it from the account it was sent to)

When forwarding a message using K-9 Mail you can select a different sender identity or account by tapping the “From” address.

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Thank you, you are right! But you are still unable to move a message to a folder belonging to ANOTHER account.

What about Settings / General Settings / Display / Font Size?

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Thank you, I was mistaken. Those Font Size Settings in K-9 function in a manner I didn’t
got used to.

l had a different question, but received the same type of response from the Fairemail folks. This was after a 10 euro donation, although I don’t know if the person I interacted with knew that.

So I am still on K9 (which has also receved a donation). But I would really, really like to have bold and italic. :slightly_frowning_face:

The same thing will happen to you here. A donation to a free software product does not yield any support favours. You don’t buy anything… As the name says, you are donating, which is a voluntary monetary form of saying “thank you” to the developers for investing their time and effort into something you can use for free.

If you are looking for software for which you can demand support once you have paid (and I literally mean “paid” not “donated”), you should look for non-free software.

TL;DR: Don’t complain after donating to FOSS.

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With some issues I’m having now, I’m going to try out Fairemail side-by-side with K-9 (Both using IMAP, of course). Worst case, if I need a feature one has but the other does not, I’ll have two tools in my tool box.

Hopefully, after some time, I’ll decide one is good enough and cut loose the other one.

We’ll see what happens.

See, this is the difference: folks here tend to assume that the user is a novice, and then offer information. Sometimes the tone is a little snarky, but it’s still accurate information.

As it happens, I have been contributing time and money to open source projects for a little while, but that’s not the point. Folks here try to help.

Fairemail and Aqua Mail, not so much. Not in my limited interaction, anyway.

(Also, the $30 fee to Aqua Mail is not a “donation”. But your basic point is still valid.)

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