We’ve been experimenting with the K-9 Mail Android email app recently, mainly because we’ve heard rumblings that it takes it a bit easier on the phone’s battery than the default Android email tool… but it’s too early for us to draw any firm conclusions on that front.
However, we were prompted to download a pretty huge and feature-packed K-9 Mail update during the week, which added loads of new innovations – including a sweet new unified inbox and the ability to totally customise the look and feel of the app, via a collection of font and colour options.
Like so:
K-9 is a slightly “hardcore” app so you’ll have to get used to it saying it’s “polling” your email account rather than simply “checking” or “downloading”, but if you’ve got lots of separate internet personalities attached to lots of separate email accounts and you want something a little more feature-filled than the stock email tool to keep track of them all, it’s ideal.
And it adds a nice signature to your emails, telling people the reason the spelling’s all shot is because you sent in on a phone. The release notes for the latest version of K-9 Mail can be found here. The app’s free to download. And we like it. It’s basically the stock app, only super-evolved.
Motorola’s latest flagship dual-core Android monster is a massive, original powerhouse, that’s a big improvement on previous MOTOBLUR mobiles – but still isn’t a total winner.
A slim and glamorous phone from Sony Ericsson, with the sharpest display around. It’s no powerhouse and the screen’s not the biggest out there, but we don’t mind. Because it’s cute.
LG’s first glasses-free 3D phone is a heavy, fat monster, with a clever 3D effect that works rather well. As a smartphone, though, it’s heavy and underwhelming.
A very shiny thing from Sony Ericsson, with a 3.7″ screen and Android 2.3.3 inside. But is it exciting enough to win fans in today’s spec-obsessed market? Can man live on one core alone?
INQ’s Android phone is an interesting “boutique” piece of hardware, packed with unique interface customisations that go far beyond the headline Facebook integration. We like it a lot.
kefs
/ June 20, 2010You can turn off the stupid k9 signature by going into the account’s advanced settings > composition settings > signature settings…
Andrew
/ December 24, 2010I’ve tried making these changes along with others and they don’t lock in. I make the change and then when I go back to the main screen none of the changes are made. I even clicked the button for no signature and it still puts in the stock K-9 signature. Any ideas of how to lock in the settings?
Chris
/ June 20, 2010Does it allow you to copy and paste? Example for copying text or URLs to Astrid to make tasks?
Gary C
/ June 20, 2010No copying & pasting as far as I can see.
rpcutts
/ July 5, 2010copy and paste can be done if you hit forward or reply and then select the text from the quoted text area.
Shit way to do it… but better than nothing :/
richie
/ July 26, 2010I’m confused as to which email app that comes with my phone I should be using. One is called “Email” which allows multiple accounts. The other is “google mail” which allows multiple accounts. Typical redundancy and confusion.
Rob
/ August 19, 2010I’d respond but I’m from not-Europe.
George MacDonald
/ November 1, 2010Help. I have been trying to get K-9 mail working. I am trying to find a way of getting rid of mails that I delete. Would like to find out how to find the trash folder. Where can I get information on how to use K-9 email.
Thanks
George
Hans
/ November 13, 2010GM,
sounds like u are talking about the stock email app on Android phones…. 10 mo. ago it wouldn’t let u delete mail (or more accurately, u could delete it from your inbox… but you could never remove it from the trash folder) <– freaking retarded. Necessitated immediate replacement with another email app.
K-9, if u are in it… has a little trashcan button at the bottom in the center when u open an email.
although k-9 asks how u want to manage deleted emails (in account settings) on the phone with regards to syncing on the server… I have yet to see it work properly from either of my Hotmail accounts setup on K-9.
opt #1 "Do Not Delete on Server" does exactly that
opt #2 "Delete from Server" does nothing
Opt #3 "Mark as read on server" does nothing
b/c Opt #2 & #3 do nothing (theoretically #1 doesn't work either) if you set your syncing time (1day, 2days, 1 week, 1 month, etc) and do all you email by phone, only rarely checking in on the actual hotmail page… emails u have deleted on phone or read on phone, often are downloaded again to the phone & treated as new.
k-9 is great otherwise… would be nice if developers fixed this issue
Tariq
/ November 24, 2010it’s a good email client, i’ve used it alot, but since i’ve restore to factory settings, and installed it again, i m unable to configure my hotmail account in it, it always give error on SMTP server while configuring it, i am able to receive email but cant send any. :( any help would be appriciated.
Carl Wouters
/ December 12, 2010Hi Tariq,
I first had the same problem, but you need to change the port number in account settings for outgoing messages, this did the trick for me.
I went into the standard mail on my htc, checked the port number and then filled this in in K-9 and everything worked from then.
I see that K-9 takes up 10 mb space (9 mb on data) and I have set up my mail to only download 8 kb…, still need to figure this one out or I will uninstall K-9, because 10 mb for an email app ….
Chris
/ August 12, 2011My new IMAP server is configured to put all folders as a subfolder of INBOX.
Thunderbird can be set to mask that – but the native Android mail app on my HTC couldn’t. Instead it showed all the folders twice – eg “Sent” and “INBOX.Sent”. So sent mail from the HTC went into a different folder and didn’t sync properly. Nightmare!
For anyone with the same problem – I found that using K-9 mail fixed it. It has the flexibility to set “Auto-expand folder” to INBOX in the Account Settings. That seems to be working a treat.
mary
/ November 20, 2011k-9 mail keeps emptying out my inbox, and I can not retrieve that mail anywhere. how can i make it leave it in inbox?
mark
/ December 5, 2011mary, it sounds like K9′s configured for pop3 mail collection. you need to change to imap which will keep the mail on the server until you delete it.