this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2022
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Open-source Android email app K-9 Mail has joined forces with the Thunderbird project, signaling the beginning of a long-term vision to deliver an outstanding Thunderbird mobile experience.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 years ago (1 children)

This is really cool to see, great news!
K-9 is a fantastic app already, and with the funding and engineering power from the Thunderbird team, I'm sure it will become the very best email client for Android.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Speaking of funding, I wonder what will happen to the supporters of K9 in Liberapay? Maybe it could even notice Mozilla of the existence of the platform.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

Yeah. In the announcement article they also linked a Mozilla donation page just for K9

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 years ago

Wow, I was thinking this would make a lot of sense when they announced work on an Android Thunderbird variant, but never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined this actually happening. This is awesome!

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 years ago

I really hope this ends well. The K9 dev has always been looking for funding so a full-time job working on K9 must be great. I really don't care about the name change but hopefully this lets it move quickly.

I like K9 but some things are fairly awkward IMHO. Even just reading a few messages in a row is a lot of clicks. I would love some swipe gestures (there is a PR in progress for this IIUC). I also find the Tier 1/Tier 2 folders very complicated. It is both too limiting (I have more than 3 types of folder) and unnecessarily complex. I would love if we could get some more control here.

But overall it is a good client, so I'm hoping this works well.

I also use Thunderbird on desktop and recent improvements have been very good. I'm hoping that it keeps improving as well.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago

I hope this also means it's getting funding and will be improved. I honestly thought they wanted to do the NIH thing and create their own client. Well done!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago

If it ain't broken don't fix it, just change its name

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I just hope they don't ruin it. Thunderbird kinda sucks and k9 is pretty awesome.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 years ago

I would say Thunderbird is great or meh depending on the context. On Linux, you have quite a few email clients to choose from and yes, Thunderbird isn't the most feature-rich or resource efficient app out there.

On Windows, however, it's a whole different story. Basically, you have the choice of: Thunderbird or Outlook. And trust me, you NEVER want to deal with Outlook. On Windows, I will take Thunderbird every. Single. Time.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

How is this good for k9? It works great as is.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 years ago

Developer gets hired and get to work on it without relying only on donations, plus the name recognition of Thunderbird.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

This is such good news !

[–] [email protected] -2 points 2 years ago

And just like that, all FairEmail fanboys, that crap on K-9 so much, switched in an instant!