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Add to SafariWhen comparing K-9 vs Type Mail , the Slant community recommends Type Mail for most people. In the question“What are the best e-mail clients for Android? ” Type Mail is ranked 2nd while K-9 is ranked 3rd. The most important reason people chose Type Mail is:
Type Mail has clearly put effort in to make their interface easy on the eyes by following Material Design style guidelines and easy to overview by color-coding messages and including details such as service logos and sender's profile to quickly understand where the message is coming from.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Free an open source
K-9 is available for free and licensed under the Apache License version 2.0 with source code available here.
Pro No privacy concerns
Pro Lightweight
K-9 mail does not use too many system resources when using the app, which allow it to be fast and lightweight.
Pro Complete PGP encryption
It's possible to complete encrypt email communications via PGP using K-9.
Pro imap
Works well with locally maintained IMAP server.
Pro Optimized for phone and tablet
On a tablet the UI looks a little different but given the extra real estate is logical.
Options to enable UI widgets a plus, can be enabled on a tablet and disabled on a phone.
Pro Material UI version
There is a fork of K-9 available on Google Play that uses Material design, improves the interface a lot.
Pro Excellent email threading
Threaded email support is better than most.
Pro Good interface
Type Mail has clearly put effort in to make their interface easy on the eyes by following Material Design style guidelines and easy to overview by color-coding messages and including details such as service logos and sender's profile to quickly understand where the message is coming from.
Pro Android Wear support
Users of Type Mail who own an Android Wear device can receive notifications of e-mails on the device as well as manage an read them.
Pro Volume key scrolling
Type Mail can scroll through messages in the inbox via the volume buttons. So you can avoid swiping on the screen if you don't want to.
Pro Customizable swipe menu and email view actions
It's possible to customize what actions are performed and what options for actions are presented via swipes as well as email view actions.
Pro Unread badges
The app icon has unread badge that allows checking if there are any new messages without having to open the application.
Pro Emails can be snoozed
It's possible to "hide" a message for a set amount of time, which gets the message out of your way until you're ready to deal with it.
Pro A timed lock screen can be set up
Users are able to set timed lock screens for the app, protecting sensitive mail from anyone who would try to access it on the device.
Pro Smart notifications
Including LED, Do not Disturb times and customizable sounds.
Pro Unified inbox
Supports an unlimited number of accounts that can all be viewed from a single inbox.
Cons
Con Dead app
Con Emails received as forwarded EML attachments are not natively supported
When you receive an email which was forwarded as an EML attachment, K-9 Mail is not able to open it natively. It opens it using a third-party application registered for this mime-type on the device, if any. The Gmail email client app is able to read the EML attachments, thus you need to have it installed as well (or any other EML capable app).
Con Noisy UI
The user interface is bland and tries to cram a lot of information on screen, making it unpleasant to use.
Con Privacy concerns
Your email is routed through Amazon Web Services.
