I like this positive approach and I realize that the developers are surprised by the reaction of users. Here’s my use case:
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I use only SMTP and POP3, no IMAP. So only one folder per account. This is probably not very common.
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I have many email accounts: personal, my own work account, accounts on customers domains, Italian PEC (kind of state stamped) and probably others. I monitor only 3 of them with K9: personal, work and PEC. The others can wait.
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I configure K9 to leave mail on the servers. I download it with my PC (Thurnderbird) and that deletes the messages in the POP3 mailbox. I can leave mail there for 1 month when I’m on vacation. I delete useless messages and
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I don’t want a unified inbox. Two reasons: a) each account has a very different purpose and messages should not mix, not even visually, b) they are separated accounts and folders in Thunderbird too.
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When I’ll open K9 5.6 tomorrow morning I’ll touch the reload button in the bottom bar (which by the way is easier to do one handed than with a button at the top) and see how many messages are left to read per account. I’ll open my personal account and go through the list. I’ll delete the messages that are not worth to make it to the PC and possibly reply to some of them. K9 will BCC me with the replies so I’ll get them later on the PC. Probably I’ll also check the work messages or I’ll wait a little. I’ll for sure read immediately any message in the PEC folder but I didn’t configure K9 to send any PEC. I do that only with Thunderbird on the PC.
With 5.6 all of that is very fast, with 5.8 it’s slow, so I downgraded from an APK I saved months ago (APK Extractor, no root required). After all version 5.6 has all the few features I need and many more that I don’t need.
And again, sincere thanks for all the work, even the one I don’t use and the one I didn’t appreciate
Edit: I don’t have notifications enabled for email. I fetch messages manually, both on the phone and on the PC. I have Telegram, WhatsApp and Slack for push notifications, when friends and customers are in a hurry. Email is a slower medium and must not distract me.
Edit #2: I attempt to answer your questions
How often did you open which screen?
I open K9 a few times per day. I refresh the summary screen, check if there are any new messages, open the account and read them. I always do this before downloading mail on the PC.
What information and/or features does the account overview screen provide to you exactly?
The number of messages, unread and total.
Do you aim to have zero unread messages in all accounts;
No, I don’t. I check the titles first. Some titles identify messages as notifications or not important or the message is the title. I don’t read them, not any soon.
so when the unread count is non-zero you know there’s new messages in an account? Do you remember the previous unread count of all accounts and when that number changes you know there’s new messages?
Yes, I notice that the number increased.
Do you prefer the account overview over notifications? Do you use both notifications and the overview?
I don’t use notifications for the reason in the first edit: they distract and interrupt, if the senders wanted that they would IM me, not mail me.
By the way, I’m not using IMAP because I don’t want that my email providers store all my mail forever. I download it and backup it. POP3 is enough for that.