K9 Mail
User Rating3.59/5
K-9 Mail Android App is an open source email client for Android with multi-folder sync, email signatures, Bcc-to-self, return-address configuration, keyboard shortcuts, Exchange Support, message flagging, IMAP deletes, saving attachments, configurable notifications and more.
Price: Free
AndroidTapp.com Android App Review:
Features:
K9 Mail Android App is one of the best email clients for Android. It’s loaded with every email feature you could think of except ActiveSync (Push email, however IMAP integration syncs almost as fast as ActiveSync). By far a better replacement over the default email client created by Google (if you’ve read my gripe about the default email client deleting my inboxes article, you’ll know why). I personally like the iMAP folder synchronization, signatures and the ability to multi-manage several emails inboxes from a mobile device. Here is the complete list of features:
- Send and Receive
- Configure to IMAP, POP3, and WebDAV (Exchange) email protocols
- Search Multiple inboxes
- Swipe for Previous/Next emails
- Set Android Notifications, sounds and vibrate alerts
- Delete email on the server works (A huge gripe with users of the default email client, when you specify to delete on the server… it doen’t, meaning double work when you do get back to desktop)
- Signatures
- Multi-folder Synchronization
- Opening and Saving attachments
- Email Sorting
- Copy email text by Forwarding message
- Frequency check settings
- Keyboard shortcuts
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- K9 Mail Inbox
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- K9 Mail Read Email
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- K9 Mail Compose Email
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- K9 Mail Accounts
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- K9 Mail Search
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- K9 Mail Search Results
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- K9 Mail Batch Operations
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- K9 Mail Folder List
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- K9 Mail Sorting Options
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- K9 Mail Add New Account
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- K9 Mail Account Settings
Usefulness:
K9 Mail Android App is extremely useful, especially for those who are dependant on email.
Ease of Use:
Once you have your IMAP, POP3, and/or WebDAV (Exchange) accounts; everything else is typical of a mobile email client. Be sure to set your email preferences such as notifications and sync options. One usability perk K9 Mail offers over Gmail is the Previous/Next buttons, which makes browsing through emails convenient versus viewing a message then going back to the entire list every time.
Frequently Used:
If you use K9 Mail Android App as your default email client, then it is used probably daily.
Interface:
The user interface recently has the added option of light background or classic dark. Gripe Alert: when viewing an email list in landscape mode (keyboard open), the email items are very small, could be difficult to read the small fonts.
AndroidTapp.com Rating
( out of 5)
Should you Download K9 Mail? Yes! An Essential App for Email on Android aside of Gmail!
238 Responses to “K9 Mail”
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[...] K-9 Mail. It can work as a replacement for RoadSync if you don’t want to spend the money…calendar integration isn’t there that I could see, but in RoadSync it is. Good if you just want email. As of 06/15/2010, I am now using this for replacement on the Gmail client that comes with the phone. It allows me to easily edit quoted messages, which as far as I’ve seen, can’t be done on the built-in gmail app. [...]
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Testing out the K-9 and also MailDroid at the moment. I like the idea that K-9 has so many options to fine tune the account to my needs. Once thing I can’t figure out (and found on MailDroid) is the ability to “Save Sent Mails on Server”.
I’m the opposite I guess as others and like to have the phone email and the laptop email show the same emails in the “Sent” and “Inbox” folders.
Thanks!
I am a outlook addict on WM 6.x. Will there be a similar push mail version on Droid ?? or will there be an Outlook version that runs on Droid ??
@JP: What functionality of Outlook on WinMo do you require that K-9 doesn’t provide?
I found the answer about the sent folder……
The emal account should be IMAP, in K-9 view the account you want to change then go to:
Menu->More->Settings->Account settings
Scroll down and select Incoming server
Scroll down and you will see buttons for Archive, Drafts, and Sent Items, etc.
Tap the button for sent items and a list of the available folders will be shown, select the folder you want to use.
Dont download this app, it promises a lot but fails spectacularly over a minute to check or send an email when the gmail app or the native androind email client takes 7 seconds, uses double the ammount of data required as others.l..it’s a watse
@Rob: It sounds like you may have some other sorts of issues with your settings. You have to be careful with your IDLE and folder poll settings not to have it check the accounts too often. Push seems to work well K-9 so I leave “IDLE” @ 60 minutes and “Folder Poll” set to never. My data usage via this app is low and I always get my mail relatively quick. I check it’s response time compared to using Outlook on my desktop via Wifi and using the web-based Gmail browser (also with Yahoo), no issues! I receive my mail as fast if not sometimes faster than it pop-ups on my Outlook. This app has an abudance of functionality and usage over the standard native Gmail app. I tried using the Gmail app and it just wasn’t enough for me. I also tried Maildroid and it couldn’t fulfill the features I needed with receiving 5 different email accounts between Google Apps/Gmail and Yahoo. I highly recommend this app to anyone who needs more than one account.
Jason:
I am having issues with the “socket not connected issue”. I tried finding the “idle” setting you discussed and couldn’t find it, and the “push” setting is grayed out so I cannot change it. Any thoughts?
@Julie: There are many reasons for this. I have to ask a few questions to really understand how to resolve the issue. What type of email account are you using (IMAP, POP3, Exchange)? What type of connection settings are you using for that account (SSL, TLS)? Also, what provider are you using such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.? You can also try searching the K-9 Mail Google Site in their issues section for anyone having the same issues. I saw a few entries but no specific resolution for the problem. I had this problem occur when I tried setting up an IMAP account before I had activate IMAP functionality in my Gmail account.
For me, the K-9 was able to satisfy something that the native droid mail could not provide. Running my email through godaddy (imap), the native program would not retrieve any of my emails in a timely manner. Basically, I got incoming emails whenever godaddy decided to send. K-9 satisfies this gap by going out and fetching all of my messages….something I could not get the native program to work.
However, the native program has no problem with the gmail accounts….those drop in almost instantaniously. It just didn’t work for my situation.
Good to know about the multiple accounts on MailDroid. I stopped using it because I started seeing an advertising banner at the bottom of my inbox…..
@Ski-me: I don’t want my post to be misleading so let me clarify. MailDroid does support multiple accounts, however I felt the features weren’t sufficient for my needs. Creating signatures in MailDroid was a pain and really hard to edit, especially if you use a long one for a business or organization account. Switching accounts wasn’t nearly as fluid as K-9. Setting up accounts in MailDroid, however, was a little less complex and required less time than it did for me using K-9. I feel the additional time, features, and settings that K-9 offers is well worth it. The native app is too basic for me since I use email soo heavily with multiple accounts for different purposes.
No problem….thanks Jason.
Question – I use to see notification icons in the top screen now I don’t.
@Ski-Me: Each account in K-9 allows you to choose whether you have notifications or not. Make sure to check the account settings (not folder or global settings) and ensure that “New Mail Notifications” is selected.
That seems to be the problem….
I have “new mail notifications” checked as well as “notifiy for mail I sent”
Still, no icon. I do get a “chime” noise when emails come in though.
Yesterday, the icon would stay on for maybe 5 minutes and then dissapear. Now, no icons at all.
@Ski-Me: What device are you using and what Android OS? It seems trivial but are there a large amount of icons at the top of your device from other applications running? There could be a few reasons why it doesn’t show up. How often are you having K9 poll your accounts?
I’m using a Droid 2 off of Verizon and the operating system is 2.2.
I don’t have a lot running in the background however I am using touchdown to sync my work email and it’s server. The icons in the top are nothing out of the ordinary…. bluetooth, 3g, antenna, battery and clock on the right side and a battery status on the left with an occasional touchdown mail icon. That’s it.
For the k-9, I have it syncing every 5 minutes.
@Ski-me: That’s an awkward issue. Have you tried reinstalling the application?
Just re-installed the program and sent an email to myself. Icon appeared for about 3-4 seconds and then dissapeared. So, I guess re-installing it didn’t help.
@Ski-me: I’m at a loss as to why this is happening. Did this happen after the 2.2 upgrade?
No, I’m using the same operating system that came with the Droid 2 from Verizon. This is happenning on my wife’s phone and my phone (same ones). Other than that, it’s OK. We just have to go into the k-9 program to see if we have any new emails…….
@Ski-me: This evening, I will shoot an email to the developer and see if this is a known issue. In the meantime, submit an issue on the developers website. I didn’t see anything in the current list of issues the resembled the problem you are having.
Once you receive a resolution, post it here in case anyone else is having a similar issue. You can reach the website at: http://code.google.com/p/k9mail/
Jason, thanks for the help. I have submitted the issue using the link you provided. Appreciate the help.
@Ski-me: Great to hear! It helps developers out a lot if you follow the steps for logging the errors using the Android SDK or aLogCat. http://code.google.com/p/k9mail/wiki/LoggingErrors
1) You can install it on either a Windows or Mac with no issues. Just make sure that you have the Java SDK installed on your system. If you use a Mac (such as the Snow Leopard OS), the Java SDK comes built-in to the system.
2) As an alternative, you can download “aLogcat” from the Android Market. It’s much simpler to use than the SDK.
As a personal note, I use the SDK as an emulator and also to take screenshots via USB cord. If you don’t plan use it for those purposes, stick with “aLogcat”.
Good luck!
@Jason – I submitted a request a few weeks ago and nothing yet. Does it generally take awhile for them to respond? A few days after the initial submital, I did recieve an email asking for the log. I did that (via email) and then also uploaded to the website a few weeks ago….still nothing.
Any thoughts? Icon is still sporatic and generally stays on for 5-10 seconds and then dissapears. I installed MailDroid and it consistently gave me notification icons without dissapearing so it seems to definitely be linked to the K-9 program.
Here is the issue link:
http://code.google.com/p/k9mail/issues/detail?id=2213
Why are some emails shaded a light purple color in my inbox? I don’t understand!?
I believe it means that the K-9 program has not downloaded the entire message. If you open up the shaded one and scroll to the bottom, do you see a “download complete message” button? This should download the remaining portion of the email and then turn it white.
In your settings there is a place where you can specify how large an email you can download automatically. If it’s greater than that specified number, K-9 will not auto-download. I assume you can increase this number if you want.
Does K-9 have a feature to allow confirmation of deletes? I have one too many times accidentally hit the delete button.
@Dustin: I haven’t found anything so far. Maybe you could submit a feature request? http://code.google.com/p/k9mail/
does K-9 support email templates? I send lots of standard message to my clients. so I am wondering if K-9 can let me send emails from templates.
thanks
@snownod: Not entirely but there is a workaround. You set up an email template as a “Identity” in your account settings. Typically I use this for different email signatures but you can set up multiple signatures for multiple accounts. In your case, you could type up an email template and use your “template” as an “Identity” so you don’t have to re-type all the information all over again. Works really well and you can set multiple identities on any given account used with K-9.
I downloaded to my HTC EVO (2.2) and could not get to connect. We’re not running a WebDAV server, just IIS and Exchange 2003 (with SSL). Had no problem with default ‘droid mail app that comes with HTC EVO and tried TouchDown ($20 Exchange/Outlook app for Android) and that connected without issue so not sure what’s going on but stopped wasting time with this and move to the TouchDown app. WOW that app is great! Would have liked to see free implementation of better Exchange integration like this promised but can’t recommend based on my experience.
Touchdown is a great app for Exchange users. I’ve had others report having no problems with Exchange and then some do. Personally, I don’t use Exchange so I’m unable to tell you my own opinion. I use K-9 with IMAP accounts and it works great for that purpose.
Okay, so I mostly love K-9 but I must have some settings wrong, because it doesn’t behave the way I’d expect an email client to behave.
Above you mentioned changing IDLE to 60 minutes. I cannot find a setting called IDLE in either Folder or Account settings. You also said poll NEVER. Which setting is that, again I can’t find it. K-9 was using way too much time downloading mail which clearly drained the battery from the WiFi use.
Every time I open it, I lose messages I downloaded and have to download them again. I lose my stars (favorites) and everything is marked unread again. wtf? If I download 250 messages, I don’t want to download them every time I open the program! I tried setting it to store headers locally (in incoming server setup) but it didn’t make a difference.
This is more of a feature request for the developers, but I want the ability to decide message by message whether to delete the message on the device, on the server, or not at all. Right now I can only set this per account, not per message. Some messages deserve to go straight to the bit-bucket, some need to be saved for later but aren’t needed on the device, some need to be kept a while in both places.
Ideas?
@Maryjane: No problem, I can help you here!
First, go to the account your trying to change (usually the Inbox is where I start). Press the “Menu” key. Select “More” then “Settings” and finally “Account Settings”. After scrolling down just a little you should see “Folder poll check frequency”. This is where you can change how often K-9 will automatically sync your phone to the server. I have this set to “Never” because the push for my Gmail and Google Apps accounts works great without it so no need to waste battery life.
Next is the IDLE time. Scroll down until you find “Incoming Server”. Click on that and scroll all the way to the button. You will find “Refresh IDLE connection” and be presented different options. I selected “Every 60 minutes”. Click next and it should take you back to the account settings screen. Press the back key until you come back to the inbox. Your done!
In the account settings there is a selection to change how much data your phone will automatically download on it’s own. It should read “Automatically download” and my setting is at “64kb”. Set this higher if you want K-9 to retain the contents of the email automatically. Otherwise, if you have images or attachments you will need to download them everytime you access the email if the size limit is over the setting you selected.
This should help keep your phone’s battery life in check. Let me know if you need anything else!