K-9 for Android APK obsolete?

Hello,
Noticed Thunderbird for Android released.
Is the K-9 for Android App obsolete or the plan is to maintain the same app with 2 package names?
Thanks

Thunderbird for Android is currently only at beta status, so not suitable yet for users on the stable release of K-9.

I use the beta releases of K-9. I have installed the TfA beta and it seems to be working pretty well. I was able to export my K-9 settings to a file and import them to TfA for a quick start :slight_smile:

Iā€™m using K-9 since eons and I prefer using it in front of Thunderbirdā€¦ But Iā€™m happy with the development progress that K9 has had since it joined Thunderbird.:wink:

Are you able to run both apps on the same device at the same time to compare feature coverage and general operating behavior?

Yes. Iā€™ve disabled notifications for K-9. Before I did that I was correctly getting 2 notifications per email

I have them installed parallel but once I noticed that Thunderbird notifications came in first I ā€œfrozeā€ K-9. This way itā€™s still there and if need be I can enable it for any tests. :sunglasses:

Thanks for that info.

In using the current beta of TfA have you noticed any major issues compared to K-9? Anything new and better?

In my opinion left bar at Thunderbird is more polished than the one at k9.
Also, the messages view, with colorized email time at Thunderbird is also better.
Settings seems the same for both apps

I compare K-9 Mail with one mobile carrierā€™s own email and Thunderbird with Gmail separately.
Both work fine.
I plan to add one account to K-9 Mail.

No

  • The sidebar navigation invoked from the three lines menu, includes a ā€˜Show accountsā€™ option, which works well
  • Threaded view: If you click on a message that is part of a thread (you can tell because it includes the number of mails in the thread after the correspondent name) it open a view with all the emails in the thread visible. Not indented like in desktop Thunderbird, because the phone screen isnā€™t wide enough.

Iā€™m not going to write any more - just install it and try it for yourself :slight_smile: If you donā€™t like it, uninstall it again :slight_smile:

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You can also follow progress at Mobile - The Thunderbird Blog

I just came here because my F-Droid installation just proposed to ā€œupdateā€ the K9 mail app to ā€œThunderbird Beta for testersā€. So thatā€™s K-9 Mail | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository now being built from new Thunderbird-nee-K9 sources, and version Version 8.0b4 (39008).

As a user of a very stable K9 on Android for many years, Iā€™m now apparently a beta testers of new, unstable software? With for example new degraded ux design (according to the subject of another thread I saw on the frontpage of this forum). Was this intentional @wsmwk

I would be surprised if it was intentional. Thereā€™s two different listings for ā€œThunderbird Beta for Testersā€, one with the k9 mail package name and the other with a thunderbird package name.

f-droid[dot]org/en/packages/com.fsck.k9/
f-droid[dot]org/en/packages/net.thunderbird.android.beta/

The k9 mail one still has the k9 mail branding and icon when installed but just shows on fdroid as thunderbird for some reason.

Unless they really are sunsetting k9 mail. But they only vaguely alluded to that happening here and itā€™s a bit ambiguous if users will have to move to thunderbird in the future or if k9 will still be maintained: Help Us Test the Thunderbird for Android Beta! - The Thunderbird Blog

The former would contradict with what was said here: https://k9mail[dot]app/2023/12/28/When-will-Thunderbird-for-Android-be-released - explicitly stating the k9 app is still going to be maintained

If they are sunsetting it, I would say the devs should just be upfront about it! Because itā€™s really not clear right now.

I agree completely @raven7167 ā€“ Problem is, right now Version 8.0 (39009) is suggested and is what will be installed. This ought to be the new Thunderbird mail app.

The fdroiddata repo was committed to here: https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata/-/commits/master/metadata/com.fsck.k9.yml
So this is done by Philipp Kewisch and @cketti . I donā€™t know if the former has an account here.

Sorry. We see there is an error in the metadata that will be corrected, which may take some hours.