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K-9 Mail is looking for funding

379 points by BubuIIC 6y ago

spapas82 6y ago
K-9 is a really great mail app for android! In my opinion it's the best app if you want to use a custom SMTP/IMAP server instead of using a solution like hotmail/google/etc. It also has PGP support (with the help of OpenKeyChain to manage certificates) that works great! There are no other well known solutions for applications supporting PGP in Android; this is huge. People that either want to avoid walled gardens or need proper encryption to their mail need to support this project!
- Arkanosis 6y ago
  > the best app if you want to use a custom SMTP/IMAP server instead of using a solution like hotmail/google/etc IMHO, it's also the best if you're using Gmail: Google has been breaking its UIs for years (both on the app and on the web), especially for people like me who try to use proper quoting and signatures, or to send plain text emails. Apart from some glitches with reflow, K-9 does that very well even with Google as email provider. I can't compare against Microsoft products since I've never used them on mobile, but seeing how horrible Outlook is on the desktop for plain text emails (and that's not an hyperbole), I bet K-9 is better as well.
  - znpy 6y ago
    jesus christ gmail is absolutely unusable both on the desktop and on mobile. the only way to make it usable again is to switch to the plain html mode, that uses no javascript, loads very fast, and reminds me a lot of the first gmail ui, back from ~15 years go.
    - ComputerGuru 6y ago
      Imagine if they just used an SSE or mixed-replace to update the plain html version in real-time when messages are received without JS. But we can’t have that (Google even unilaterally disabled mixed-replace in blink/Chrome/Chromium (except for continuing to support MJPEG) many, many years ago so no one else can do that either).
      - edoceo 6y ago
        What's a mixed-replace update?
      - znpy 6y ago
        Imagine if they had just fu--ing kept gmail lean and slick as it was in the first days.
    - nsriv 6y ago
      I've really enjoyed using the Simplify Gmail extension when I use Gmail on desktop. Just launched a new v2 that's very nice. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/simplify-gmail/pbmlfaiicoikhdbjagjbglnbfcbcojpj?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/simplify-gmail/pbm...
      - znpy 6y ago
        I'm having none of that crap. Injecting non-google code inside my gmail window sounds like a very dumb idea to me, honestly. I already trust google very little and keep my gmail inbox because I'm basically being coerced/forced to (no gmail = no apps on android)... The last thing I want is adding another entity to the picture.
  - 0x426577617265 6y ago
    One thing that confuses me about iOS devices is when a gmail account is added to the mail program. It isn’t clear if it is adding SMTP/IMAP or if it is doing some web app type configuration and if that gives Google more access to track device activity.
    - g_p 6y ago
      This sounds like the modern OAuth-based sign-in flow (for IMAP and SMTP connections, authenticated by OAuth). This helps avoid app-specific passwords when you use 2FA, and lets users use their regular sign-in flow (which could include enterprise SSO, TOTP, U2F key etc). I imagine that there's the ability for Google to set some cookies as part of that process, although knowing Apple, would not be surprised to learn they had sandboxed that instance of the browser, to prevent cookies persisting into regular Safari.
- Black101 6y ago
  I like FairEmail too... it also supports PGP. https://f-droid.org/en/packages/eu.faircode.email/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/eu.faircode.email/
  - Aachen 6y ago
    I didn't know of this one, that looks really nice! Do you know why they chose to start over when K9 already existed for a long time (it says copyright 2018-2021 on the website), or is it a fork?
    - g_p 6y ago
      FairEmail was made from scratch, and has modern (from the ground up) sync logic, that works well with modern battery saving measures in Android. Push mail by default, and low power consumption during sync. I believe it actually works better than Gmail (which has the advantage of Google's push infrastructure) - FairEmail just uses IMAP idle (where possible). K9 originated in the old android AOSP email app, and I think the developer of FE wanted to cut loose from that and build it according to newer design patterns.
  - hvdijk 6y ago
    That one supposedly has source code available under GPL3 but despite GPL3 clause 9, which says "You are not required to accept this License in order to receive or run a copy of the Program", presents the GPL3 as an EULA and refuses to run unless the user clicks "I agree".
    - Schiphol 6y ago
      I can't be any less of a lawyer, but that sounds OK to me. One is not required to accept the license merely by virtue of it's having been published under that license, but this is surely compatible with the author adding extra conditions to run their program if they so wish?
      - hvdijk 6y ago
- SilasX 6y ago
  I'm a little miffed that this comment has a better explanation of "why I should care about K-9 Mail" than anything I could find from deliberately looking for that information on their site. The "about" page just talks about the team, and their blog posts, even the one "what's up with K-9?" just talk about release schedules.
  - gifnamething 6y ago
    The features are listed on the homepage
    - nichos 6y ago
      The features are listed, but they're not clickable for further details. Things like "light and dark theme" could show screenshots. In fact, I can't find any screenshots at all on their site, except for the one on the front page.
  - cketti 6y ago
    K-9 Mail never had a PR or marketing person. But help in that area would certainly be welcome. What information would you like to find on the website exactly?
    - SilasX 6y ago
      Just that by going to "about" I could find some "why K-9" page that explains what's great about it esp. compared to alternatives.
- cge 6y ago
  >It also has PGP support (with the help of OpenKeyChain to manage certificates) that works great! There are no other well known solutions for applications supporting PGP in Android; this is huge. As a caveat here, at least in the non-beta version, support for PGP signatures is intentionally crippled because the original author dislikes them and apparently wants to push encryption (eg, https://github.com/k9mail/k-9/issues/2375 https://github.com/k9mail/k-9/issues/2375), ignoring everyone who points out that this feature may be important or required by policy for them. By default, PGP signatures on unencrypted emails are silently hidden and the emails are displayed as being unsigned. There is no way to sign emails by default, and trying to sign an email results with a popup telling you not to.
  - upofadown 6y ago
    For clarity, the author doesn't like unencrypted but signed emails. Which strikes me as weird but at least it isn't something that people would normally do. They are OK with encrypted and signed emails and presumably encrypted but not signed emails. Here is the rationale: * https://k9mail.app/2016/11/24/OpenPGP-Considerations-Part-I.html https://k9mail.app/2016/11/24/OpenPGP-Considerations-Part-I.... I think there are implementations out there that don't let you send encrypted but unsigned messages (anonymous encrypted). This stuff seems to bring out the enforced opinions in people.
- jjav 6y ago
  K-9 Mail is great indeed. Particularly that it is available on F-Droid as I don't want to create a google account so won't/can't use their playstore.
mahmoudhossam 6y ago
I'm surprised there's no work being done on the UI on the roadmap, K-9 looks like an app from the "Ice Cream Sandwich" days of Android. With that being said, K-9 is the best Android app I've seen for mail that isn't made by Google. edit: it seems the work has already been done, thanks for the correction.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- BubuIIC 6y ago
  Have you looked at the beta versions yet? The UI was overhauled over basically the last 1.5 years and the points mentioned in the blog post are the bits missing to release that as a stable version (IMAP IDLE mostly): https://github.com/k9mail/k-9/releases https://github.com/k9mail/k-9/releases I've been running the betas since more than a year without any problems whatsoever. (If you don't need push obviously)
  - out_of_protocol 6y ago
    Is UI any different from current stable version?
    - alvarlagerlof 6y ago
      I tried it from the Github releases page. It has definitely been updated a lot from the Play Store version.
    - cketti 6y ago
      Yes. This blog post contains a few screenshots: https://k9mail.app/2020/06/01/Whats-Up-With-K-9-Mail https://k9mail.app/2020/06/01/Whats-Up-With-K-9-Mail
  - richardwhiuk 6y ago
    I struggle to understand why there hasn't been a release for 1.5 years, especially with a ~full time dev. I definitely struggle to udnerstand why IMAP IDLE is critical for a release. Edit: Oh, probably a minSDK force - i.e. the cost of standing still in mobile development.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
padraic7a 6y ago
K9 used to feel like a great app, but I think it has been creaking around the edges for a while. I've thrown in a few quid. There isn't anything to rival it so I hope it gets some more developer time.
- wizeman 6y ago
  I've been using FairEmail (from F-Droid) and it works extremely well. Looks better and seems more reliable to me.
  - padraic7a 6y ago
    FairEmail puts some of it's features in a pro version only. Which is fine, I support developers getting paid to work, but in this case I would rather help crowd fund K9 which can offer these features to anyone - whether they can pay or not.
BiteCode_dev 6y ago
Love this app. Recently, it became less and less usable, with deal breaker bugs like mails not sending reliably or at all. So I'm going to donate, because this app is fantastic and I really want it to keep existing.
Arkanosis 6y ago
K-9 is one of these programs I use every day, several times per day. And among these programs, one of the (rare) ones that have never needed any care from me: it just works, and has kept working for years. That being said, there are lots of things that could be improved upon the current release version (especially wrt search), and I understand that just keeping up with the Android ecosystem is not a small task. I've just set up a small recurring donation. It's more than worth it.
rglullis 6y ago
If the developer is checking this thread: take a look at the Brave Creators program. If you have an account there I will gladly add you to my list of regular contributions. Brave userbase is growing in and millions of users are receiving BAT which can them be used to support developers and content creators.
jqpabc123 6y ago
How to create one super successful email client. - Support IMAP IDLE - Support all the major business platforms: Web, Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android. - Support email encryption on a one off basis as needed. Nothing fancy just encrypt the email with AES256. Don't worry I'll get the key to the reipient. Why this would be super successful. 1) It would eliminate instant messaging for most business use. 2) Consistency, simplicity and ease of support. 3) Contrary to popular opinion, 99 percent of business communication is not super secret stuff. It doesn't warrant the complexity of full time end to end encryption. But it is nice to bave it readily available for the 1 percent where it is really needed. And yes, I have used K9 personally and I will support it but it doesn't begin to meet my business needs.
- pabs3 6y ago
  I think support for IMAP NOTIFY scales better, since it is per-connection instead of per-folder.
  - jqpabc123 6y ago
    IDLE and NOTIFY kinda work together don`t they? In any case, all I really need is "instant" notification of new messages.
- cketti 6y ago
  Probably not the right app for your use cases, but check out Delta Chat for an example of how unobtrusive email encryption can be: https://delta.chat/ https://delta.chat/
  - jqpabc123 6y ago
    Delta Chat has a lot of good stuff. What I need and what I think most businesses need is Delta Email instead of Delta Chat.
    - rakoo 6y ago
      I think business doesn't actually want Email, it wants NNTP. The semantics are different enough that both models have a reason to exist and complement each other: - With email you write to a specific address. With NNTP you write to a group. In a business you almost always want to target multiple people, because activity is interesting (and relevant) to many people. - To solve that we have a hack that is mailing lists; they work, but still only allow people to receive content _if they were in the recipient list from the beginning_. With NNTP the actual users are abstracted from the recipient, which allows people to read content in a group _even in the past_, or unsubscribe from a group and not bo bothered by new content - Because it is ingrained in the protocol, creating/modifying/removing groups is easy to do, contrary to mailing lists. You don't need a special team to do that. Many times there is some content that needs to include multiple lists, but not everyone in those groups is relevant to the discussion... but you still include the different maliing lists because "that's the people who _might_ be interested". No more CC forwarding ad nauseam. - Side-effect of having well-defined groups: because groups are more fluid they match better to actual people, and so the groups becomes a good denominator of what the "mail" might be about and whether it is important or not (compared to a sender and 189 random recipients) Just look at the way the latest business IMs like Teams are working. They might not be perfect but they map much more to NNTP semantics, and have become the preferred way to communicate, even in long-ish form, rather than email. (They do have one big advantage over NNTP though: message editing) At this point, if a new software is needed anyway, we might as well ditch email and use a better protocol (even if it is not NNTP)
2Gkashmiri 6y ago
i recently started getting into selfhosting email and k9 mail was the goto app for android. i first got the f-droid version but switched to github beta version and the experience has been awesome
ajkdhcb2 6y ago
Was going to donate but there are no crypto payment options.
ocdtrekkie 6y ago
I used K-9 back in my Android days (5+ years ago). It's biggest weakness was, and to my knowledge, still is, inability to support modern OAuth authentication schemes that Google and Microsoft have largely switched to. Sometimes I get a notification from a comment on the GitHub issue still. It used to be able to connect to Exchange servers, but hasn't been able to for nearly a decade.
- m-chrzan 6y ago
  What exactly do you need this for? If it's for authenticating with their IMAP/SMTP, app passwords have worked for me with Gmail, even on 2FA-secured G Suite accounts. No idea about Microsoft though.
  - noisem4ker 6y ago
    Outlook supports app passwords too. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/account-billing/using-app-passwords-with-apps-that-don-t-support-two-step-verification-5896ed9b-4263-e681-128a-a6f2979a7944 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/account-billing/using-ap...
  - folmar 6y ago
    You can't get them on _non_ 2fa gsuite for example .
  - ocdtrekkie 6y ago
    Exchange administrators usually disable IMAP. K-9 originally was one of the few apps that could still talk to Exchange servers. But it's failed to keep up with the times. Currently you have to allow "less secure apps" on your Google account to use K-9.
btittelbach 6y ago
K-9 Mail is like, the _only_, sane e-Mail Android app out there. Pitching in for sure.
- GordonS 6y ago
  Not the only one - I started using Nine a year ago, after switching from something else that has been abandoned (I forget the name, but I'd been using it for years because it supported bypassing Exchange security lock down). Absolutely love Nine - it works marvellously with my own IMAP and SMTP servers, my work O365 etc. And everything in the UI is configurable. I think Nine is actually the only Android app I've ever actually paid for - highly recommended it.
  - stonesweep 6y ago
    I have licenses for both Nine and AquaMail with the same purpose (operates with work-required MFA via O365+adfs+RSASecureID token) and would highly encourage you to look at AquaMail. If you thought Nine was configurable, hold on to your hat - AquaMail is all that and more, I highly prefer AquaMail to Nine for business email.
    - rkagerer 6y ago
      I've been using Nine for ages and it's great*. How well does AquaMail work with Exchange / ActiveSync? (*My only real complaint about Nine is if I try to import more than a few months worth of email history into the local cache it slows to a crawl and starts breaking. I'd pay for an app that locally indexes a few tens of GB of email history and makes it instantly searchable.)
      - stonesweep 6y ago
        I'm afraid I've never used it with direct Activesync; my Exchange connection has always been EWS/OWA-based (whatever they call the web endpoint now in O365 hosted Exchange).
normaler 6y ago
I really love K9 Mail. I startend donating 5€ per month now. What I love the most is how easy it is to sort E-Mail and to actually use existing Folderstructures. I almost dont need a desktop client anymore to handle my mail.
- jdboyd 6y ago
  I sometimes wish k9mail was available on the desktop.
  - tubularhells 6y ago
    Yeah, Thunderbird is a mess. I wish we had something better.
    - folmar 6y ago
      Try alpine. It is very similar in spirit, save for the lack of GUI.
      - tubularhells 6y ago
        Yeah, I need the GUI.
    - Tijdreiziger 6y ago
      I use eM Client, but it's not open source.
      - tubularhells 6y ago
        It needs to support Linux though.
    - mqus 6y ago
      There is also evolution from gnome, which is a bit better imho
bogwog 6y ago
I remember using K-9 when I got my first (or second?) Android phone. I don’t remember the exact version, but it was probably pre-ICS. I do remember that I liked it a lot. Fast forward to a couple of years ago, I tried the app again and was disappointed at how it looked basically identical to the last time I tried it. Seeing that, I just assumed it became abandonware. Does this fund raiser mean I was wrong, and the app was always under development, or that it was recently revived?
- paulryanrogers 6y ago
  Try the beta. It was a new UI.
- kgwxd 6y ago
  The release version is from 2018 but I just found out about the beta version in this thread, which looks more modern, not sure how modern though, just about every app I use looks different, so I'm not sure what today's standards are. I've been using it for at least 5 years without much issue.
- scintill76 6y ago
  Half of HN complains every time a UI is updated; the other half complains when a UI hasn’t been updated.
pmontra 6y ago
I've been using K-9 since forever, maybe since 2011 if it's as old as that. I don't need any new feature, all I need is that it downloads mail from POP3 accounts. Manual pull only, customers already send me push messages on Slack ;-) Still I'm donating some money because I want that it keeps working on new Android versions.
Fnoord 6y ago
I can recommend K-9 fork p≡p [1] which has material design. [1] https://pep.security https://pep.security
- michw 6y ago
  i use it on a daily basis. amazing!
soheil 6y ago
I wanted to give a quick shoutout to Hey [0] while giving K-9 a potential solution. Hey is fiercely approaching email like no other email client has in decades. It is a fundamental shift in the way we interact with email. For anyone who hasn't tried it, you're missing out on what email can be. They have a free trial but it isn't free nor is it ad supported or backed by a VC, which brings me to the point about funding. You shouldn't be sorry about charging your customers or feel only if some investor would give you money all your problems would go away. I gladly pay for Hey because it solves a real problem elegantly, sure it's not perfect, I still have to have my gmail on the side as sort of a backend to my email experience, but the problems it solves are well worth paying for. So if K-9 provides real value where no other email client provides the same level of value then their users should be more than happy to pay for it, I know I would. But if it provides some esoteric feature like PGP where even those who use it don't really know why they do and most certainly would not pay for then sure maybe you do need outside funding. [0] hey.com
- NikxDa 6y ago
  While I really enjoy Hey, I think a $99 per year price tag is insane. You‘ll likely use your email for tens of years to come, so that‘s multiple thousands of dollars for a software that doesn‘t need to change. Running a mailserver isn‘t expensive, either. It could as well be an email client with a one-time payment, in my opinion. Would I pay $99 once and use it with my existing providers? Sure! Would I pay yearly and switch all my emails so that I am basically trapped inside a subscription? No...
  - soheil 6y ago
    Running email isn't expensive neither is breathing air while walking to work, but that misses the point. They had to build a product to make email less crazy that has real value and it takes massive effort and creativity.
stonesweep 6y ago
PSA: if you've not used it in awhile, use the betas via F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.fsck.k9/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.fsck.k9/ You have to click "Versions" from the F-Droid app and specifically opt-in (and upgrade) the betas, F-Droid will default to installing the older stable version. The betas are almost night (mode heh) and day apart, the UI and operations have almost a complete overhaul from the old days and it looks (and works) really great on my Android 11 device. This isn't K-9 Mail on your T-Mobile G1 anymore, it's a brand new day for the betas.
- zufallsheld 6y ago
  I just checked: you can access the beta program in the play store, too!
- dr_hooo 6y ago
  Thanks for the pointer - much improved indeed! I was getting the impression that development had ceased and never knew that F-Droid doesn't always install the latest available version.
  - antibuddy 6y ago
    It's a bit annoying that you can't make F-Droid auto-update to latest when the "suggested" is not the latest. The version is also split on GitHub[1] and I can only guess why. [1]: https://github.com/k9mail/k-9 https://github.com/k9mail/k-9
- tubularhells 6y ago
  Oh wow the beta looks nice. I'll test it and donate if it's something I'll change over to. Currently I use FairEmail, a Dutch opensource project done buy a local guy. It's good but it has some nuances and way too much granularity for my taste.
- RealStickman_ 6y ago
  This is huge! Thanks for sharing.
- 6y ago
jonquark 6y ago
I've not donated through Liberapay before but this prompted me to donate to k9-mail and in turn after poking around on Liberapay for a bit, I've set up small recurring donations to other OSS that I use (like GIMP).
ntnsndr 6y ago
Switched to FairEmail and never looked back. Just a beautiful piece of software.
toyg 6y ago
Is there an equivalent for iOS? I'm currently using Outlook, which does all the basic stuff very well, but I'd like something a bit more "power user"...
elevation 6y ago
I use K9 for a small LLC, and would like to support the developer. My CPA advises that anonymous[1]/charitable contributions are not tax deductible business expenses. However, if the recipient publicly acknowledges your sponsorship, it's considered an "advertising" expense. To accept contributions from small corporations using your app, consider offering a low-friction non-charitable service such as a one-year placement on a "sponsors" page of your website, like (the Python Software Foundation does this for contributions of any amount. [0]) Another option could be an annual per-user license (for organizations large enough that the person with a credit card wanting to support you cannot also influence the advertising budget.) If you're a solo developer, don't forget small businesses when considering how to raise funding! [0]: https://www.python.org/psf/donations/ https://www.python.org/psf/donations/ [1]: https://liberapay.com/about/ https://liberapay.com/about/
- cketti 6y ago
  I understand it's difficult for a company to give money to an open source project. But none of the options you've mentioned sound very appealing to me. GitHub displays the avatars of sponsors. Maybe that's an option that satisfies the "acknowledges sponsorship" criterion? https://github.com/sponsors/cketti https://github.com/sponsors/cketti
  - fxtentacle 6y ago
    They could release a paid upgrade that allows you to customize the splash screen to show your company logo That's clearly advertisement and paying extra to have your logo on a product is an established business practice.
  - Cu3PO42 6y ago
    You could also sell access to some "extra documentation". It doesn't have to be particularly useful or add any value at all, it just has to be there. You could probably go as "far" as just writing a two-page rundown of IMAP or something. Maybe even put it online for free and sell access to a PDF. The point is there's a tangible "benefit". This does not apply solely to taxation, but also what is an easy sell to management. All of this is extra administrative work that understandably you don't want to deal with, but it may open the door to significantly more sponsorships, so it could be worth looking into. Disclaimer: I am neither a lawyer nor a CPA.
cptnapalm 6y ago
I was running local mail on my main machine called "Brainmachine" after a computer in the old 1960s Dalek comic strip. Looking around for an Android program to access it, I found K-9. Serendipity.
amaccuish 6y ago
And I am afraid, for the sake of my battery, if it doesn't support ActiveSync, it won't happen.
mickotron 6y ago
Just started $5 on github, cheers for the reminder

379 points by BubuIIC 6y ago

K-9 is a really great mail app for android! In my opinion it's the best app if you want to use a custom SMTP/IMAP server instead of using a solution like hotmail/google/etc. It also has PGP support (with the help of OpenKeyChain to manage certificates) that works great! There are no other well known solutions for applications supporting PGP in Android; this is huge. People that either want to avoid walled gardens or need proper encryption to their mail need to support this project!

Arkanosis 6y ago
> the best app if you want to use a custom SMTP/IMAP server instead of using a solution like hotmail/google/etc IMHO, it's also the best if you're using Gmail: Google has been breaking its UIs for years (both on the app and on the web), especially for people like me who try to use proper quoting and signatures, or to send plain text emails. Apart from some glitches with reflow, K-9 does that very well even with Google as email provider. I can't compare against Microsoft products since I've never used them on mobile, but seeing how horrible Outlook is on the desktop for plain text emails (and that's not an hyperbole), I bet K-9 is better as well.
- znpy 6y ago
  jesus christ gmail is absolutely unusable both on the desktop and on mobile. the only way to make it usable again is to switch to the plain html mode, that uses no javascript, loads very fast, and reminds me a lot of the first gmail ui, back from ~15 years go.
  - ComputerGuru 6y ago
    Imagine if they just used an SSE or mixed-replace to update the plain html version in real-time when messages are received without JS. But we can’t have that (Google even unilaterally disabled mixed-replace in blink/Chrome/Chromium (except for continuing to support MJPEG) many, many years ago so no one else can do that either).
    - edoceo 6y ago
      What's a mixed-replace update?
    - znpy 6y ago
      Imagine if they had just fu--ing kept gmail lean and slick as it was in the first days.
  - nsriv 6y ago
    I've really enjoyed using the Simplify Gmail extension when I use Gmail on desktop. Just launched a new v2 that's very nice. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/simplify-gmail/pbmlfaiicoikhdbjagjbglnbfcbcojpj?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/simplify-gmail/pbm...
    - znpy 6y ago
      I'm having none of that crap. Injecting non-google code inside my gmail window sounds like a very dumb idea to me, honestly. I already trust google very little and keep my gmail inbox because I'm basically being coerced/forced to (no gmail = no apps on android)... The last thing I want is adding another entity to the picture.
- 0x426577617265 6y ago
  One thing that confuses me about iOS devices is when a gmail account is added to the mail program. It isn’t clear if it is adding SMTP/IMAP or if it is doing some web app type configuration and if that gives Google more access to track device activity.
  - g_p 6y ago
    This sounds like the modern OAuth-based sign-in flow (for IMAP and SMTP connections, authenticated by OAuth). This helps avoid app-specific passwords when you use 2FA, and lets users use their regular sign-in flow (which could include enterprise SSO, TOTP, U2F key etc). I imagine that there's the ability for Google to set some cookies as part of that process, although knowing Apple, would not be surprised to learn they had sandboxed that instance of the browser, to prevent cookies persisting into regular Safari.
Black101 6y ago
I like FairEmail too... it also supports PGP. https://f-droid.org/en/packages/eu.faircode.email/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/eu.faircode.email/
- Aachen 6y ago
  I didn't know of this one, that looks really nice! Do you know why they chose to start over when K9 already existed for a long time (it says copyright 2018-2021 on the website), or is it a fork?
  - g_p 6y ago
    FairEmail was made from scratch, and has modern (from the ground up) sync logic, that works well with modern battery saving measures in Android. Push mail by default, and low power consumption during sync. I believe it actually works better than Gmail (which has the advantage of Google's push infrastructure) - FairEmail just uses IMAP idle (where possible). K9 originated in the old android AOSP email app, and I think the developer of FE wanted to cut loose from that and build it according to newer design patterns.
- hvdijk 6y ago
  That one supposedly has source code available under GPL3 but despite GPL3 clause 9, which says "You are not required to accept this License in order to receive or run a copy of the Program", presents the GPL3 as an EULA and refuses to run unless the user clicks "I agree".
  - Schiphol 6y ago
    I can't be any less of a lawyer, but that sounds OK to me. One is not required to accept the license merely by virtue of it's having been published under that license, but this is surely compatible with the author adding extra conditions to run their program if they so wish?
    - hvdijk 6y ago
SilasX 6y ago
I'm a little miffed that this comment has a better explanation of "why I should care about K-9 Mail" than anything I could find from deliberately looking for that information on their site. The "about" page just talks about the team, and their blog posts, even the one "what's up with K-9?" just talk about release schedules.
- gifnamething 6y ago
  The features are listed on the homepage
  - nichos 6y ago
    The features are listed, but they're not clickable for further details. Things like "light and dark theme" could show screenshots. In fact, I can't find any screenshots at all on their site, except for the one on the front page.
- cketti 6y ago
  K-9 Mail never had a PR or marketing person. But help in that area would certainly be welcome. What information would you like to find on the website exactly?
  - SilasX 6y ago
    Just that by going to "about" I could find some "why K-9" page that explains what's great about it esp. compared to alternatives.
cge 6y ago
>It also has PGP support (with the help of OpenKeyChain to manage certificates) that works great! There are no other well known solutions for applications supporting PGP in Android; this is huge. As a caveat here, at least in the non-beta version, support for PGP signatures is intentionally crippled because the original author dislikes them and apparently wants to push encryption (eg, https://github.com/k9mail/k-9/issues/2375 https://github.com/k9mail/k-9/issues/2375), ignoring everyone who points out that this feature may be important or required by policy for them. By default, PGP signatures on unencrypted emails are silently hidden and the emails are displayed as being unsigned. There is no way to sign emails by default, and trying to sign an email results with a popup telling you not to.
- upofadown 6y ago
  For clarity, the author doesn't like unencrypted but signed emails. Which strikes me as weird but at least it isn't something that people would normally do. They are OK with encrypted and signed emails and presumably encrypted but not signed emails. Here is the rationale: * https://k9mail.app/2016/11/24/OpenPGP-Considerations-Part-I.html https://k9mail.app/2016/11/24/OpenPGP-Considerations-Part-I.... I think there are implementations out there that don't let you send encrypted but unsigned messages (anonymous encrypted). This stuff seems to bring out the enforced opinions in people.
jjav 6y ago
K-9 Mail is great indeed. Particularly that it is available on F-Droid as I don't want to create a google account so won't/can't use their playstore.

mahmoudhossam 6y ago

I'm surprised there's no work being done on the UI on the roadmap, K-9 looks like an app from the "Ice Cream Sandwich" days of Android. With that being said, K-9 is the best Android app I've seen for mail that isn't made by Google. edit: it seems the work has already been done, thanks for the correction.

deleted 6y ago
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BubuIIC 6y ago
Have you looked at the beta versions yet? The UI was overhauled over basically the last 1.5 years and the points mentioned in the blog post are the bits missing to release that as a stable version (IMAP IDLE mostly): https://github.com/k9mail/k-9/releases https://github.com/k9mail/k-9/releases I've been running the betas since more than a year without any problems whatsoever. (If you don't need push obviously)
- out_of_protocol 6y ago
  Is UI any different from current stable version?
  - alvarlagerlof 6y ago
    I tried it from the Github releases page. It has definitely been updated a lot from the Play Store version.
  - cketti 6y ago
    Yes. This blog post contains a few screenshots: https://k9mail.app/2020/06/01/Whats-Up-With-K-9-Mail https://k9mail.app/2020/06/01/Whats-Up-With-K-9-Mail
- richardwhiuk 6y ago
  I struggle to understand why there hasn't been a release for 1.5 years, especially with a ~full time dev. I definitely struggle to udnerstand why IMAP IDLE is critical for a release. Edit: Oh, probably a minSDK force - i.e. the cost of standing still in mobile development.

deleted 6y ago

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padraic7a 6y ago

K9 used to feel like a great app, but I think it has been creaking around the edges for a while. I've thrown in a few quid. There isn't anything to rival it so I hope it gets some more developer time.

wizeman 6y ago
I've been using FairEmail (from F-Droid) and it works extremely well. Looks better and seems more reliable to me.
- padraic7a 6y ago
  FairEmail puts some of it's features in a pro version only. Which is fine, I support developers getting paid to work, but in this case I would rather help crowd fund K9 which can offer these features to anyone - whether they can pay or not.

BiteCode_dev 6y ago

Love this app. Recently, it became less and less usable, with deal breaker bugs like mails not sending reliably or at all. So I'm going to donate, because this app is fantastic and I really want it to keep existing.

Arkanosis 6y ago

K-9 is one of these programs I use every day, several times per day. And among these programs, one of the (rare) ones that have never needed any care from me: it just works, and has kept working for years. That being said, there are lots of things that could be improved upon the current release version (especially wrt search), and I understand that just keeping up with the Android ecosystem is not a small task. I've just set up a small recurring donation. It's more than worth it.

rglullis 6y ago

If the developer is checking this thread: take a look at the Brave Creators program. If you have an account there I will gladly add you to my list of regular contributions. Brave userbase is growing in and millions of users are receiving BAT which can them be used to support developers and content creators.

jqpabc123 6y ago

How to create one super successful email client. - Support IMAP IDLE - Support all the major business platforms: Web, Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android. - Support email encryption on a one off basis as needed. Nothing fancy just encrypt the email with AES256. Don't worry I'll get the key to the reipient. Why this would be super successful. 1) It would eliminate instant messaging for most business use. 2) Consistency, simplicity and ease of support. 3) Contrary to popular opinion, 99 percent of business communication is not super secret stuff. It doesn't warrant the complexity of full time end to end encryption. But it is nice to bave it readily available for the 1 percent where it is really needed. And yes, I have used K9 personally and I will support it but it doesn't begin to meet my business needs.

pabs3 6y ago
I think support for IMAP NOTIFY scales better, since it is per-connection instead of per-folder.
- jqpabc123 6y ago
  IDLE and NOTIFY kinda work together don`t they? In any case, all I really need is "instant" notification of new messages.
cketti 6y ago
Probably not the right app for your use cases, but check out Delta Chat for an example of how unobtrusive email encryption can be: https://delta.chat/ https://delta.chat/
- jqpabc123 6y ago
  Delta Chat has a lot of good stuff. What I need and what I think most businesses need is Delta Email instead of Delta Chat.
  - rakoo 6y ago
    I think business doesn't actually want Email, it wants NNTP. The semantics are different enough that both models have a reason to exist and complement each other: - With email you write to a specific address. With NNTP you write to a group. In a business you almost always want to target multiple people, because activity is interesting (and relevant) to many people. - To solve that we have a hack that is mailing lists; they work, but still only allow people to receive content _if they were in the recipient list from the beginning_. With NNTP the actual users are abstracted from the recipient, which allows people to read content in a group _even in the past_, or unsubscribe from a group and not bo bothered by new content - Because it is ingrained in the protocol, creating/modifying/removing groups is easy to do, contrary to mailing lists. You don't need a special team to do that. Many times there is some content that needs to include multiple lists, but not everyone in those groups is relevant to the discussion... but you still include the different maliing lists because "that's the people who _might_ be interested". No more CC forwarding ad nauseam. - Side-effect of having well-defined groups: because groups are more fluid they match better to actual people, and so the groups becomes a good denominator of what the "mail" might be about and whether it is important or not (compared to a sender and 189 random recipients) Just look at the way the latest business IMs like Teams are working. They might not be perfect but they map much more to NNTP semantics, and have become the preferred way to communicate, even in long-ish form, rather than email. (They do have one big advantage over NNTP though: message editing) At this point, if a new software is needed anyway, we might as well ditch email and use a better protocol (even if it is not NNTP)

2Gkashmiri 6y ago

i recently started getting into selfhosting email and k9 mail was the goto app for android. i first got the f-droid version but switched to github beta version and the experience has been awesome

ajkdhcb2 6y ago

Was going to donate but there are no crypto payment options.

ocdtrekkie 6y ago

I used K-9 back in my Android days (5+ years ago). It's biggest weakness was, and to my knowledge, still is, inability to support modern OAuth authentication schemes that Google and Microsoft have largely switched to. Sometimes I get a notification from a comment on the GitHub issue still. It used to be able to connect to Exchange servers, but hasn't been able to for nearly a decade.

m-chrzan 6y ago
What exactly do you need this for? If it's for authenticating with their IMAP/SMTP, app passwords have worked for me with Gmail, even on 2FA-secured G Suite accounts. No idea about Microsoft though.
- noisem4ker 6y ago
  Outlook supports app passwords too. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/account-billing/using-app-passwords-with-apps-that-don-t-support-two-step-verification-5896ed9b-4263-e681-128a-a6f2979a7944 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/account-billing/using-ap...
- folmar 6y ago
  You can't get them on _non_ 2fa gsuite for example .
- ocdtrekkie 6y ago
  Exchange administrators usually disable IMAP. K-9 originally was one of the few apps that could still talk to Exchange servers. But it's failed to keep up with the times. Currently you have to allow "less secure apps" on your Google account to use K-9.

btittelbach 6y ago

K-9 Mail is like, the _only_, sane e-Mail Android app out there. Pitching in for sure.

GordonS 6y ago
Not the only one - I started using Nine a year ago, after switching from something else that has been abandoned (I forget the name, but I'd been using it for years because it supported bypassing Exchange security lock down). Absolutely love Nine - it works marvellously with my own IMAP and SMTP servers, my work O365 etc. And everything in the UI is configurable. I think Nine is actually the only Android app I've ever actually paid for - highly recommended it.
- stonesweep 6y ago
  I have licenses for both Nine and AquaMail with the same purpose (operates with work-required MFA via O365+adfs+RSASecureID token) and would highly encourage you to look at AquaMail. If you thought Nine was configurable, hold on to your hat - AquaMail is all that and more, I highly prefer AquaMail to Nine for business email.
  - rkagerer 6y ago
    I've been using Nine for ages and it's great*. How well does AquaMail work with Exchange / ActiveSync? (*My only real complaint about Nine is if I try to import more than a few months worth of email history into the local cache it slows to a crawl and starts breaking. I'd pay for an app that locally indexes a few tens of GB of email history and makes it instantly searchable.)
    - stonesweep 6y ago
      I'm afraid I've never used it with direct Activesync; my Exchange connection has always been EWS/OWA-based (whatever they call the web endpoint now in O365 hosted Exchange).

normaler 6y ago

I really love K9 Mail. I startend donating 5€ per month now. What I love the most is how easy it is to sort E-Mail and to actually use existing Folderstructures. I almost dont need a desktop client anymore to handle my mail.

jdboyd 6y ago
I sometimes wish k9mail was available on the desktop.
- tubularhells 6y ago
  Yeah, Thunderbird is a mess. I wish we had something better.
  - folmar 6y ago
    Try alpine. It is very similar in spirit, save for the lack of GUI.
    - tubularhells 6y ago
      Yeah, I need the GUI.
  - Tijdreiziger 6y ago
    I use eM Client, but it's not open source.
    - tubularhells 6y ago
      It needs to support Linux though.
  - mqus 6y ago
    There is also evolution from gnome, which is a bit better imho

bogwog 6y ago

I remember using K-9 when I got my first (or second?) Android phone. I don’t remember the exact version, but it was probably pre-ICS. I do remember that I liked it a lot. Fast forward to a couple of years ago, I tried the app again and was disappointed at how it looked basically identical to the last time I tried it. Seeing that, I just assumed it became abandonware. Does this fund raiser mean I was wrong, and the app was always under development, or that it was recently revived?

paulryanrogers 6y ago
Try the beta. It was a new UI.
kgwxd 6y ago
The release version is from 2018 but I just found out about the beta version in this thread, which looks more modern, not sure how modern though, just about every app I use looks different, so I'm not sure what today's standards are. I've been using it for at least 5 years without much issue.
scintill76 6y ago
Half of HN complains every time a UI is updated; the other half complains when a UI hasn’t been updated.

pmontra 6y ago

I've been using K-9 since forever, maybe since 2011 if it's as old as that. I don't need any new feature, all I need is that it downloads mail from POP3 accounts. Manual pull only, customers already send me push messages on Slack ;-) Still I'm donating some money because I want that it keeps working on new Android versions.

Fnoord 6y ago

I can recommend K-9 fork p≡p [1] which has material design. [1] https://pep.security https://pep.security

michw 6y ago
i use it on a daily basis. amazing!

soheil 6y ago

I wanted to give a quick shoutout to Hey [0] while giving K-9 a potential solution. Hey is fiercely approaching email like no other email client has in decades. It is a fundamental shift in the way we interact with email. For anyone who hasn't tried it, you're missing out on what email can be. They have a free trial but it isn't free nor is it ad supported or backed by a VC, which brings me to the point about funding. You shouldn't be sorry about charging your customers or feel only if some investor would give you money all your problems would go away. I gladly pay for Hey because it solves a real problem elegantly, sure it's not perfect, I still have to have my gmail on the side as sort of a backend to my email experience, but the problems it solves are well worth paying for. So if K-9 provides real value where no other email client provides the same level of value then their users should be more than happy to pay for it, I know I would. But if it provides some esoteric feature like PGP where even those who use it don't really know why they do and most certainly would not pay for then sure maybe you do need outside funding. [0] hey.com

NikxDa 6y ago
While I really enjoy Hey, I think a $99 per year price tag is insane. You‘ll likely use your email for tens of years to come, so that‘s multiple thousands of dollars for a software that doesn‘t need to change. Running a mailserver isn‘t expensive, either. It could as well be an email client with a one-time payment, in my opinion. Would I pay $99 once and use it with my existing providers? Sure! Would I pay yearly and switch all my emails so that I am basically trapped inside a subscription? No...
- soheil 6y ago
  Running email isn't expensive neither is breathing air while walking to work, but that misses the point. They had to build a product to make email less crazy that has real value and it takes massive effort and creativity.

stonesweep 6y ago

PSA: if you've not used it in awhile, use the betas via F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.fsck.k9/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.fsck.k9/ You have to click "Versions" from the F-Droid app and specifically opt-in (and upgrade) the betas, F-Droid will default to installing the older stable version. The betas are almost night (mode heh) and day apart, the UI and operations have almost a complete overhaul from the old days and it looks (and works) really great on my Android 11 device. This isn't K-9 Mail on your T-Mobile G1 anymore, it's a brand new day for the betas.

zufallsheld 6y ago
I just checked: you can access the beta program in the play store, too!
dr_hooo 6y ago
Thanks for the pointer - much improved indeed! I was getting the impression that development had ceased and never knew that F-Droid doesn't always install the latest available version.
- antibuddy 6y ago
  It's a bit annoying that you can't make F-Droid auto-update to latest when the "suggested" is not the latest. The version is also split on GitHub[1] and I can only guess why. [1]: https://github.com/k9mail/k-9 https://github.com/k9mail/k-9
tubularhells 6y ago
Oh wow the beta looks nice. I'll test it and donate if it's something I'll change over to. Currently I use FairEmail, a Dutch opensource project done buy a local guy. It's good but it has some nuances and way too much granularity for my taste.
RealStickman_ 6y ago
This is huge! Thanks for sharing.
6y ago

jonquark 6y ago

I've not donated through Liberapay before but this prompted me to donate to k9-mail and in turn after poking around on Liberapay for a bit, I've set up small recurring donations to other OSS that I use (like GIMP).

ntnsndr 6y ago

Switched to FairEmail and never looked back. Just a beautiful piece of software.

toyg 6y ago

Is there an equivalent for iOS? I'm currently using Outlook, which does all the basic stuff very well, but I'd like something a bit more "power user"...

elevation 6y ago

I use K9 for a small LLC, and would like to support the developer. My CPA advises that anonymous[1]/charitable contributions are not tax deductible business expenses. However, if the recipient publicly acknowledges your sponsorship, it's considered an "advertising" expense. To accept contributions from small corporations using your app, consider offering a low-friction non-charitable service such as a one-year placement on a "sponsors" page of your website, like (the Python Software Foundation does this for contributions of any amount. [0]) Another option could be an annual per-user license (for organizations large enough that the person with a credit card wanting to support you cannot also influence the advertising budget.) If you're a solo developer, don't forget small businesses when considering how to raise funding! [0]: https://www.python.org/psf/donations/ https://www.python.org/psf/donations/ [1]: https://liberapay.com/about/ https://liberapay.com/about/

cketti 6y ago
I understand it's difficult for a company to give money to an open source project. But none of the options you've mentioned sound very appealing to me. GitHub displays the avatars of sponsors. Maybe that's an option that satisfies the "acknowledges sponsorship" criterion? https://github.com/sponsors/cketti https://github.com/sponsors/cketti
- fxtentacle 6y ago
  They could release a paid upgrade that allows you to customize the splash screen to show your company logo That's clearly advertisement and paying extra to have your logo on a product is an established business practice.
- Cu3PO42 6y ago
  You could also sell access to some "extra documentation". It doesn't have to be particularly useful or add any value at all, it just has to be there. You could probably go as "far" as just writing a two-page rundown of IMAP or something. Maybe even put it online for free and sell access to a PDF. The point is there's a tangible "benefit". This does not apply solely to taxation, but also what is an easy sell to management. All of this is extra administrative work that understandably you don't want to deal with, but it may open the door to significantly more sponsorships, so it could be worth looking into. Disclaimer: I am neither a lawyer nor a CPA.

cptnapalm 6y ago

I was running local mail on my main machine called "Brainmachine" after a computer in the old 1960s Dalek comic strip. Looking around for an Android program to access it, I found K-9. Serendipity.

amaccuish 6y ago

And I am afraid, for the sake of my battery, if it doesn't support ActiveSync, it won't happen.

mickotron 6y ago

Just started $5 on github, cheers for the reminder