Google → [Apps] Email app for Android OS

I'm a Blackberry user, with looming BB network shutdown »[Blackberry] Blackberry shutting down services on January 4, 2022 I'm looking for a good email app for Android that can somewhat replicate BlackBerry Hub behavior.
What I want ideally:
- On home screen swipe to the right brings Inbox instead of Google feed (probably it's too much to ask for, but I'm hopeful)
- Email that can sync on schedule (every 30 min), download headers only and not waste data downloading full messages/attachments unnecessarily without confirming with the user first
- Handle multiple inboxes using IMAP/SMTP protocol
- Simple, fast & compact app that doesn't waste resources and slow the phone down draining battery to zero
- Ideally without ads, or shows text only ads

Tried:
- BlackBerry Hub+
Don't like: No swipe action on home screen, have to fish for icon every time. Heavy bloat, constantly spews a bunch of useless notifications, sits in the tray showing 3 icons! and wastes battery/data unnecessarily. Free version also shows ads, which take 1/4 of the screen. A major step back for Blackberry.

- Gmail native app
Too primitive and too dependent in internet, cannot sync on schedule. Poor handling of multiple accounts that are not Gmail. Also this ridiculous separation of emails on Promotions, Notifications, etc. Just need simple Inbox, no need for this foolishness.

- Outlook
Monstrosity of an app, 300MB! Tries to be too smart predict future and do things nobody asked for, wasting my battery/data in the meantime. Not good for me.

- K9 Mail
Looks like a high school project, weird interface. Didn't bother looking deeper.

- Blue Mail
Testing right now, looks like it's a hosted product. From their terms: "By using Blue Mail you are giving Blix Inc. permission to hosting or sharing your data as you direct it through Blue Mail. This includes receiving and sending emails." Basically they are acting as a middleman between you and your mail provider, scanning all your messages that you send/receive. Meh.

I've heard good things about Samsung Mail, but my phone isn't Samsung, and I can't install Samsung Mail on non-Samsung device, says it's not supported.

So I was wondering what do people use on Android OS for email. So far I am very disappointed with Android OS and I come to realize that BlackBerry is the best phone for Email, period.

I have no clue if it will do all that you ask, as I used it many moons ago, but TouchDown was pretty good for my needs at the time. I was able to configure it for an IMAP and an Outlook account, and remember it being pretty decent, but as I said, that was at least 5+ years ago.

--edit--

Well, I was going to provide a handy link, but it appears the app has been 'sunsetted' by Symantec. Sorry!

The BEST email app was the one that came bundled with Samsung phones however its a Samsung exclusive so if you have a google branded android you don't get that app, which kind of sucks i wish google will have a non-Gmail email app unless someone can figure out how to side load it via the apk file

Samsung is getting ready to kill that app off also.

I use Gmail because my email is gmail. I have my own domain on Google Apps/Suite/whatever the name is now. I never considered another.

I have a Gmail address too but I only created it because I needed it a google account to use android. My primary account is Microsoft Hotmail, now called Outlook. Even though outlook has their own email account it has serious limitations with synching calendar, contacts and other information.
Even the Gmail app does not do the best job to sync other email accounts like hotmail to your phone.

In my personal opinion the Samsung Mail app was and still is the BEST app to sync contacts, calender entries, etc.

Everybody I know has a gmail account AND another one such as hotmail so they use the default gmail account for their google account which is required for android, but they use the hotmail as their primary account and use that to sync their contacts and calender entries to their device. The Samsung email app did the BEST job with synching that and this is why everyone I know used it over the built in gmail app, too bad its not available on my google pixel.

Gmail app gives you very little control over your email. Hell, they even put words into your mouth when you type a letter. I don't like that. Ideally I want something plain and simple with lots of settings, to sync on schedule, control what and how much is being downloaded, etc. But I guess those times are long gone, who uses email anymore, it's a Facebook/Instagram era. After coming from BB, Android phone seems like a giant spyware bloat with targeted ads everywhere spying on you to sell you something. Might hold on to my Blackberry for longer.

I've seen Samsung Mail app and I agree, that it might be the BEST email app for Android out there, but I can't get it for my Android 12 phone by Motorola. Is there a way to get old Android Mail app somewhere that was discontinued since Lollipop? Like allow "unknown sources" and install old .apk? I got CSIPSimple VoIP client to work this way.

one thing to note, every app created these days including the OS it runs on wastes resources by design. So thinking that you are going to find a good SymbianOS Nokia phone running 5G is out of the question.

I recommend looking at various builds in XDA (google it) and deploy that if you want certain weird tricks...

otherwise, get used to the new apps and move on...

your missing the point da geek kid, they WANT you to use the gmail app, they also want you to use gmail as your primary address even though you been using a hotmail or msn.com or yahoo.ca or yahoo.com or whatever all your life. they want to manipulate you into changing your email to google. this is why people are not happy with the gmail app, when you use gmail app with a non gmail your experience is severely limited and not the same

I use a Google Pixel, pure Android without bloat.

Me too, I can always de google the phone as opposed to other phones...however, I cannot live without the pixel's AMAZING scribe app Recorder. I wish it could do other languages as well...

I have a Motorola phone, supposedly it's "almost" pure Android as well, not much bloat from Moto, just a few simple apps that can be removed easily. But the problem is that the whole OS seems like a bloat to me, no matter how "pure" it is. At least for a person coming from Blackberry 10.

I am sorry about that. I have had a lot of varieties of phones from Asus, LG, HTC, Samsung. Motorola was the worst which lasted the shortest time just over 13 months.

LOL, you listed all Asian brands of phones, as if they ever had good quality built into them. IMO, all Android phones are kind of crap these days, they're built as cheap as possible with very little engineering and reliability testing involved and they all last very short, so I'm not surprised. Android software didn't go far from that either, whenever you tap - all you see is just ads. The whole Android phone is one big never ending ad. Man, do I miss my Blackberry.

With regards to Email app, which I am still looking for a decent one. I tried Aqua Mail - it was pretty good, with lots of settings. Apparently it's #1 voted app for email on Android, but free version only allows 1 account. And I am not paying $50CAD to use an email app, so this will not work for me.

For now I just settled with Open Source K9 Mail, will see how it goes. Might reinstall Blackberry Hub+ and live with ads if K9 doesn't work long term.

I gotta disagree, at least about Samsung's Note line. My Samsung Note 5 lasted 6 years and I only changed because it was considered a security vulnerability for work, due to lack of updates. Upgraded to the Note 10+ and couldn't be happier. It is a flagship phone, but it's quality is top notch, all around.

I am happy that you are happy, honestly, at least somebody likes stuff what their so-called "engineers" produce. I find it a bit funny however, how people inflate years of phone ownership. According to GSM Arena, Note 5 was released August 2015, so lets assume you got it at the release date, then you say you owned it for 6 years, that makes it August 2021. However, Note 10+ was released August 2019, which is 2 years ago. So you got a 2 year old phone? Doesn't jive with "security vulnerability for work".

Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to put you on the spot. This is generally the case with everybody, when people say they owned the phone for so many years, they inflate that number by couple of years to make the phone look more robust than it really is! I notice this everyday. I have Blackberry Passport, it was released June 2014, I got it in 2015 and it's still going strong! My carrier is booting me off their network, saying that I cannot continue using it past January 4, 2022 and I have to migrate to another OS. This phone went through hell, it was dropped into sea water, it was disassembled and its motherboard was alcohol washed in repair shop, the technician said that he cannot guarantee how long the phone will work after that, but it works to this day, almost 4 years after the event and counting! LOL. This is what I call quality, engineered in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. But it's too expensive to design/build stuff here anymore, so we get what we pay for.

Well, let's say 5.5 yrs then, if you want to nitpick. I'm sure of the date of the Note 5, as my company bought it when the HTC I had before that died and we'd just swapped carriers to Sprint at the time, evidently got a deal on it and I was surprised they went with it as it was the latest and greatest at the time.

Fast forward to now, my company is no longer with Sprint (ATT) and they DO provide cheap ass phones now. The Note5 was no longer considered secure per my company at the beginning of this year, so I had to upgrade to something that was. I didn't want to carry 2 phones, and they didn't want to pay for a Note10 (not to mention a 20), so it was on me. My wife's phone needed upgrading at the same time, so now I was looking at paying for 2 phones, and they ain't cheap. Samsung eventually had a deal, and boom...we both now have Note 10's. The guarantee 3 years of updates, so we'll see where I land after that, but they're most certainly considered secure at this time.

I'm not a moron, nor do I have a need to lie to you about the phone's I have, so don't really appreciate the backhanded condescension. Secondly, I'm just stating my experience. Ironically, the same anecdote you have about your BB, I have about the same Note5 in question. I took it out on the lake with a few of my friends, and went to jump on the tube behind the boat...hit the side and slid right in, water over my head. Came back up, and realized I could feel my phone in my pocket. Pulled it out and literally threw it onto the boat. I turned it off and didn't touch it for 2 days, putting it in rice, left it below the oven in the warmer for a few hours with it on low, etc....Powered it on a few days later and it came right back up. Still works to this day, though it does now have a crack in the screen acquired at some point.

So...while BB may be your end all, be all...it's because you've had a good experience with them, but that doesn't make all other phones inferior. I have almost a physical loathing of all things Apple, but again, due to my job, I have had to carry an iPhone for certain periods when I was on location, and their phone does what it does well. I can see why people like them and android could learn a thing or two from them, I think. Would never own one personally, but as much as I'd like to, I can't call them inferior.

Pretty sure Lenovo owns and makes Motorola phones, so yeah ...

I use and love K9-Mail.

And if you want something different in a phone, I am looking into this...

»www.freedomphone.com/

That is correct, Lenovo also wanted to buy Blackberry at one point.

Thanks for info, but it seems like a de-Googled version of Android, no guarantee that it will handle email better.

a de-googled version of android will only come with ONE email client, gmail. a manufacturer branded one like Samsung or LG will often come with 2 email clients, the gmail by default, well duh, its googles requirement, and their own email app which most people believe it or not use to check non gmail address like a hotmail or yahoo mail or their work, where the syncing of contacts works REALLY REALLY GOOD compared to the gmail trying to sync those accounts

And so is all Apple iPhones, they are all built and assembled in Asia.

All new Google phones are made by HTC since google bought the phone manufacturing division of them.

Don't know if it ticks all the boxes for you, but I've been using Spark for email for a while now and have been happy with it. I've only had a problem with it one time, and support was very quick to respond and fix the issue. Don't recall what the issue was now, but it was some sort of bug that was affecting multiple users. I use Spark on all my devices. They have it for Android, MacOS, and iOS. A version for Windows is in the works.

»sparkmailapp.com/

Another vote for K9 here.

Not familiar with that app. What is it? What does it do?

Ditto. I had the Pixel XL, and currently have the Pixel 2 XL, and next week I'm getting the Pixel 6 Pro.
Pure stock Vanilla Android, no bloatware, really clean and streamlined interface without overlays, first to get software and security updates, ftw!

I used to be a BB user myself, and loved it back then (BBM was the sh*t!); I had the BB Storm, and then the BB Storm 2.

Surprised the OP is still so stuck on BB, they took over after Sidekicks and Nextels went the way of the Dodo, but have long since past their prime and are pretty long in the tooth now. Plenty of other phones and apps work way better.

If it's "almost" pure, then it isn't pure. Compare it to a Pixel phone, and I guarantee you'll see the difference.