Email client app

hello-gos

What is the recommended email client app for grapheneos?

schweizer

There is no official client recommended. But fairemail is working well, is open source, available outside play store and has decent support. It also supports E2EE and you can enforce DNSSEC. M365 is supported as well.

AcclaimSublevel19

I just installed Thunderbird today and it's much nicer than the desktop version, which I didn't like. It supports many email providers and I can totally recommend it!

secrec

AcclaimSublevel19 That's because its not actually Thunderbird. Its actually k9mail with branding replaced by Thunderbird.

tux_

K9 works well, at least provided your IMAP server supports plain authentication.

RandByte

Thunderbird == K9Mail since the K9 dev joined the Thunderbird team. The two apps are identical besides the name and eventually, K9 will fade away. I use Thunderbird both on desktop and phone and it works perfectly well.

beep-boop

I'm suffering with ProtonMail, but yeah, privacy, yeah

hello-gos

Follow up question: I still need access to my Gmail email account. Is there a benefit of ditching the Gmail app and replacing it with thunderbird or fairemail to read my gmail?

tux_

hello-gos From what I recall, Google no longer allows you to use plain IMAP with a password. You need OAuth, for which support in K9/Thunderbird is (was?) patchy.

But even if you manage to get an email client working, your device will be keeping a connection open with Google's servers (or poll regularly) which, as far as am concerned, is giving Google too much information. If I had to use Google email at all, I would use the webmail.

I now host my own email and haven't looked back. No 2FA reminders, no terms and condition updates, no mailbox or attachment size limits, unlimited aliases and mailboxes, plain IMAP authentication. Best of all, Google isn't reading my email.

schweizer

hello-gos Is there a benefit of ditching the Gmail app and replacing it with thunderbird or fairemail to read my gmail?

I think yes. AFIK the Gmail app requires Google Play Services. Privacy sensitive users do not use that on their work profile. It relies on push services so there is constant communication between the server and your mobile. If you use a client like Fairemail you can set the app to check manually only so there is much less communication and GPS is not required.

Gmail app does not support E2EE directly such as PGP or S/MIME.

tux_ You need OAuth, for which support in K9/Thunderbird is (was?) patchy.

That works flawlessly in Fairemail. At least I never had problems. 2FA is not a bad thing. I would not recommend using a self hosted mail server to the average user just to circumvent 2FA.

de0u

tux_ I now host my own email and haven't looked back.

What do you use for spam filtering?

tux_

de0u I run SpamAssassin but don't rely on it much. I give each website/company a unique alias and simply revoke the alias (and cause emails to bounce) if/when I start receiving spam.

hello-gos

schweizer i like the idea of manual download instead of constant pinging.

Follow up question: are these clients more or less secure than Gmail app if you get malicious emails?

graphny

+1 for FairEmail

Schienensurfer

K9 user here, works like a charm 👍

DeletedUser622

I prefer Profimail since Symbian era. The app is freeware now: https://www.lonelycatgames.com/apps/profimail

secrec

DeletedUser622 The app is freeware now

"Freeware" only means that you don't have to pay money for it. Its still closed source and doing who the hell knows what like sharing your email password with the NSA.

What you're really looking for is "Open source", which is not just free, but also you can read the code to see what its actually doing. While you may not look at the code yourself, there are people who do, and the developers of significant open source projects don't want to be caught with backdoors or malware because that would destroy their reputation and their product's reputation. The bottom line is that bad stuff is a lot more likely to be discovered and corrected if it was placed intentionally into open source software vs closed.

There are TWO major open sourced email clients for Android;

Fairemail
K9Mail/Thunderbird

schweizer

DeletedUser622 According to their website this app is not maintained any more. I discourage using this/such a product.

graphny

hello-gos are these clients more or less secure than Gmail app if you get malicious emails?

The first person linked fairemail's github, I will paste the link once again. Give it a read, please.
https://email.faircode.eu/

Watermelon

hello-gos The Gmail app is compatible with all six per-app exploit protections without warnings currently (for me at least), but I didn't see any setting in the app to stop the automatic rendering of previews of attachments, especially for messages that are in the Spam folder (such as if Gmail detected them as a phishing attempt! this is very stupid). The Gmail app communicates with Google Play services and is installed from Google Play Store, both of them require disabling the DCL exploit protections. Look for compatibility with exploit protections, settings to harden the app such as blocking the preview of attachments either in the Spam folder or completely, etc.

hello-gos

graphny yes, I read it but unfortunately it doesn't answer my question.