What's your favorite email client?
I'm tried of how terrible Gmail is. Id like an email client with folders or categories. If it can sort them automatically (like how Googles now defunct inbox app used to) that would be even better.
Edit: in a couple days or whenever the activity on this post slows down. I will update this post with a list of the most recommended email app.
Edit2:
Results are in: Number is the amount of people who specifically mentioned it.
- FairMail 6
- K-9 5
- Spark 2
- ProtonMail
- Re:work
- Nine
- Tutanota
- Canary Mail
- Aqua
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Comments66
K-9 Mail is my favorite. It will.be renamed in future to Thunderbird, because the developer is now working for them ๐
He is ? Awesome! If we could get a full mobile thunderbird app that would be epic.
Thunderbird made a blog post about it ๐ฑ
No, it's a regular email client.
Both require special clients.
I currently use Thunderbird for Protonmail and don't see any issues. I think you may need to have a paid plan though.
https://proton.me/support/protonmail-bridge-clients-windows-thunderbird
I don't use them, so I don't know ๐
Fairemail is pretty much the default android client. Open source, full featured, not bad on the eyes. It just fucking works without hassles.
If anything, the settings are too feature packed, it can take a while to tweak everything if you really want it customized
Thanks for the recommendation. I'm tired of the official app and will try this out instead!
Agreed. Lots of features - definately worth the effort though.
FairMail is very good, and gets updates frequently.
Works great with Gmail, and other mail services.
I installed it. Gonna try it out and see. You're the second person to recommend it.
When not using ProtonMail, I use FairEmail: "Fully featured, open source, privacy oriented email app for Android."
https://github.com/M66B/FairEmail
These are the guys who pluralize one of 'traffic', 'help' or 'email' with an S like it's not stupid?
Another vote for FairMail. I've been using it for a few years at this point and never had a reason to look for an alternative.
I'll probably give K-9 a try when it eventually rebrands as Thunderbird though.
Does FairMail have automatic categorisation (like Gmail / Inbox)?
Experimental feature
I miss Inbox
It was so much better than Gmail
Me too. Of all the Google products that they cancelled, inbox hurt the most.
Spark. Absolutely adore it. Once I tried it, I've never gone back.
Do you like it's new interface?
I like the Smart 1.0 implementation.
2.0 just hides away a lot of important messages. I have 5 email IDs due to work and other stuff, and I CANNOT figure out how that interface works.
The 1.0 works perfectly.
I'm absolutely agree. I really tried to get used to the new interface, but its a pain.
Also, the new Windows version lacks support of Exchange, and it messes up your accounts on another devices.
Still love it. Not the windows version.
I prefer the original Mail and Calendar app that came with Windows 10.
But Microsoft being Microsoft, abandoned their own app dev platform to essentially just make a web app instead. Apparently, native apps are just too much to ask for these days. ๐
Nine
Been using for a long time because of the rich text email options. But it is awesome all around. My pick for best of the best.
You're the second person that's recommended nine so I guess I'll give it a shot. Do you know if they collect data from your emails?
Is it still being developed? It looks like the last update was back in April last year.
How is K9 better than FairEmail?
Agreed. FairEmail is my goto choice. They're both open source and on F-Droid.
FairEmail does have a $9 license you can buy to add extra features, but even without the license, I found it to be a nicer app than K9.
Fairemail on android. Thunderbird on pc. K9Mail on android is also good but I prefer fairemail
I use the default Gmail client but i highly recommend K9-Mail.
I just wish Android had a nice email client that was material you and material 3 like Gmail and also wasn't Gmail
You are responding to a post on an Android community with recommendations for macOS and Linux mail clients, without any mention of an Android mail client.
Sorry! I'm still learning how to use this. I'll delete my comment
"Id like an email client with folders or categories."
I tried a few other email clients to see if I could ditch the gmail one (years ago, admittedly), and where those clients fell short for me was they didn't support labels, only folders. Multiple labels can apply to one email, but an email can only belong in one folder.
Does anyone know if things have changed, whether third party clients now support gmail labels?
There are email clients that do support labels (like em mail client), but I haven't found one where that actually syncs with the server. As far as I can tell, IMAP does support labels, but maybe the label concept isn't the same so it doesn't translate? Maybe it works over exchange as a protocol, but I haven't tried.
Basically, I think it's a limitation is the (by now) rather old protocol that's still being used, and the lack of (well supported) alternatives?
Note that em client sports Gmail's labels just fine, and syncs them properly, but that part only works with Gmail. Which kind of defeats the purpose of trying to ditch Gmail, but wanting labels and not folders.
k9 which will be become thunderbird mobile in the future
I used K9 for years but recently switched to FairEmail. Works better in terms of auto-completing addresses, has better sever-side search. Previously it looked horrible compared to K9 but lately it has added Material You and other attractive theming options. It has a rather intimidating level of options but is very powerful. That being said, I still like K9 and will probably continue to check in as they add features and become part of Thunderbird. Both K9 and FairEmail are really good in terms of being ad-free, privacy-respecting clients with unified inboxes, dark mode and other features most important to me. K9 has advantage of being totally free where FairEmail puts some key features behind a purchase, which I understand, as it's a solo developer.
K9. Super happy in general, apart from push email not working properly most of the time
I like Spark. I've had many interactions with the company and support out of Ukraine and they're always great. Haven't found anything better for my needs.
I love spark for how it helps one curate their inbox. For me it made email slightly useful once again!
Thunderbird - a bit slouchy at times but featurewise I'm very happy with it :)
Tutanota, which is unfortunately my only option with my email provider lol. They have their own client which is really slow and clunky, but it has a simple view with my email, contacts, and calendar. It's all stored e2ee too.
I have a tuta account as well. Their app is very barebones. I support the company though as I believe in their mission.
Same, the app can certainly be painful at times though lol
Im with Samsung Mail happy.
Still have this post saved waiting for the list...
Fineeeee, I'll do it.
Thanks!
I use canary mail. I've been happy with it. It had some security features that first drew me in. But it also has a nice smart select feature that will higlight what it perceives to be junk, as you scroll your inbox. This makes cleanup a breeze.
https://canarymail.io/why-canary.html
Re:work. If you need Exchange connectivity look no further. It has a subscription model, but there's absolutely nothing better than it. Made my the same company that made the previous Exchange king, Nine.
I still like Aqua. I know.
Are you a Barbie Girl? Or a Cartoon Hero?
Maybe I'm both?
c/lostlemmiers
My problem with Gmail is that from mobile you're limited on the features you have. You can't create filters or really set up any kind of automation for your inbox. Mobile is the main place that I interact with my personal inboxes, so having these features on mobile is important to me.
This is an entirely pointless comment. They said it didn't meet their needs and they want to know if others have alternatives. You're as bad as the people who answer the Amazon questions with "I don't know."
Ok but it doesn't work for them and they do have a need for an alternative lol
The title asked that, but their post clearly made the point that they wanted alternatives. Reading the whole post helps.
After Gmail merged all the storage limits that you use across all their sevices, I have been looking for an altetnstive. I'd rather pay for a web server to host my mails than google
Self-hosted mail has some pains associated with it in regards to reliability due to major email services rating SMTP servers and tending to not trust personal ones. If moving away from privacy-violating services is your main goal and are open to non-self-hosted alternatives, I'd suggest Proton Mail. They even have a free tier if you want to test the waters. They do have pretty easy migration tools to move away from Gmail as well.
A thread on HN really poopoo'd proton mail (but not the VPN which I love) and recommended Fastmail over it. I can't recall why so I'll try to dig it up, but just throwing that out there since it might be good to check in on any major cons with it. It wasn't scandals or "they aren't private" or something but it felt significant when I read it.
It's possible that it's the lack of direct compatibility with other clients. Since it's fully encrypted beyond even just OpenPGP capabilities, some are turned off that you can't easily use other clients. Without a lot of effort you are required to use their mobile app or the website. And on desktop, you need to setup their Bridge to be able to use third party clients.
You clearly understand this stuff better than I do, but some of that seems somewhat familiar
Self hosting email leads to depression and alcoholism. I don't recommend it.