this post was submitted on 31 May 2025
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My requirements are simple:

  1. I am able to search past emails and view them.

  2. Able to "Mark as read" from the notification popup.

  3. No ads

My experiences are mixed:

Fairmail, Aquamail (when it was good) , K9, Thunderbird and similar apps **satisfied ** 2) and 3). However, they all failed at 1). The searches either return nothing or take a long time to load. So I have to swap to a browser , go to Gmail then search from there.

Outlook sucks at 3). Sometimes it gives me random ads within my inbox. It does 2) very well. For 1), it can retrieve the searches better than the group above , but not reliable.

The Gmail app excels at 1), it fails at 2) and 3). The ads within the app are not that terrible, but stil very annoying. It's been years and we still couldnt "Mark as read" from the notification. Surprisingly, Gmail works for 1) all the time.

Which one do you use?

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[–] kirk781@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 1 day ago

There is one called FairEmail. While it technically has a pro version (one time purchase), but most of the needed features are available on the free tier. Plus it's available on F Droid as well, so that's a plus and is continuously maintained.

[–] InstructionsNotClear@midwest.social 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

K-9 mail. 1/3rd the size as the gmail app and no ads.

[–] InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

There is also a Thunderbird app now. I think they are doing the maintenance for k9 as well.

[–] Kornblumenratte@feddit.org 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

IIRC Thunderbird acquired K9 and rebranded it.

[–] Disevani@lemm.ee 1 points 1 day ago

They are pretty much the same now. Such a shame, because i really liked to old K-9 (both design and performance were better IMO). Thunderbird is fine tho.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

What ads are you seeing in Gmail besides your own emails that probably contain some sort of spam? 🤨

[–] SinningStromgald@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Social and Promotional sections have sponsored "emails" aka ads.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

This is the official Android app you're talking about, right? I don't even see such a category/label. I'm wondering if this is one of those slow-roll outs for new BS they are planning on adding.

[–] SinningStromgald@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Apparently if you dont use inbox categories you won't see them. So that might be why you haven't. Personally I like them. The sponsored emails are easy to ignore and not seeing the spam from Linkden, that I only use when job hunting, in the main inbox is nice. Any sites I've bought from that sends sale emails gets shunted into Promotional so they dont clog my inbox either.

FWIW, Linkedin has reasonably extensive notification settings with toggles for both email and push. I get almost no emails from them except when I accidentally turn on alerts from a new job search.

[–] lka1988@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

I turned those off the moment they appeared in my gmail account. Don't understand why others still use them.

[–] Evotech@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de -1 points 23 hours ago

The best answer is to leave Gmail.

[–] HeyJoe@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

I actually forgot. Just looked, and it's just Outlook. I thought I used something else and remembered I did years ago. Just looked for it and I think it was called BlueMail but I tried looking it up, and it looks like it went really downhill. Years ago, I loved it. I'm guessing that's why I switched at some point.

[–] mundane@feddit.nu 6 points 1 day ago

Spark, it reminds me of Google inbox (although I'm still bitter over Google killing inbox).

I use the free tier of Spark, and have never felt a need to upgrade. The free version contains all the features I need.

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I use the Gmail app. I've never seen any ads in it, where do you see them?

It doesn't have "mark as read", no, but it does have archive. Why do you want to leave items in your inbox but read?

[–] AbidanYre@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The "social" tab it created almost always has at least one sponsored message at the top.

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Oh. I turned those off the day they were introduced.

[–] AbidanYre@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Settings, inbox categories. I have them all unchecked and the app works perfectly smoothly for me.

[–] AbidanYre@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Oh, I thought there was a way to disable the sponsored crap. I like getting all the linkedin nonsense filtered. I suppose I could just unsubscribe too.

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 2 points 1 day ago

Yeah I mostly just unsubscribe from that stuff. Gmail even gives you a button for it. Although recently Linkedin started a new type of email, and if I click their unsubscribe button it just goes to the top-level notification settings, which I already turned off, so those ones I just started marking as spam. Now they all go to the spam folder.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 1 points 1 day ago

Just create a filter with the LinkedIn domain(s)

[–] lka1988@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

Same. I saw it for what it was right off the bat. No thanks.

[–] p_kanarinac@retrolemmy.com 3 points 1 day ago
[–] Engywuck@lemm.ee 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (1 children)

Uhm... Search works correctly in Fairemal here, even when it is performed on the server (not locally).

[–] Nilz@sopuli.xyz 1 points 20 hours ago

Really? I am never able to find emails that haven't been received on Fairemail or are quite old when using an Outlook and/or IMAP email address.

[–] meejle@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

TIL Outlook has ads. I use AdBlock and I had no idea 😅

[–] lka1988@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

I used Thunderbird for a while, but for some reason it would dig up years-old emails and present them as new and unread. Despite the fact that I never leave anything "unread".

[–] knobbysideup@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Nine. I use it with my own dovecot/sendmail server and with Gmail for work.

It's not maintained but still works better than the others for me.

[–] banghida@lemm.ee 2 points 1 day ago
[–] hellequin67@lemm.ee 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Run a noads DNS on the phone, either libredns or mullvaddns, neither outlook or Gmail will show ads.

In fact you won't have any ads period.

[–] Geodad@lemm.ee -4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I don't. I installed GrapheneOS to get rid of google.

Oak's words echoed... "There's a time and place for everything but not now!"