An email client app is responsible for accessing your email messages on the server from your device.
Mail clients are available for desktop, or can even come in a self-hosted web-based form, which the user can install and use on their own servers local or remote.
We have covered self-hosted email client apps and open-source email servers in previous articles.
Why do you need email clients for your Android?
Although Android comes with the mail client application, some may need to use other alternatives.
In this article, we provide you, free ads-free open-source mail clients, for your android device, tablet, phone, or otherwise.
Open-source, secure, privacy-first email clients
1- K-9 Mail
K-9 Mail is a free, open-source email client app for Android. It is available in all popular Android stores like Google's Play Store, F-Droid, and Amazon App Store.
K-9 App Features include push IMAP support, GPG/ PGP/ MIME support, multi-account setup, unified inbox, per-account notifications, email signatures, and more.
The app is an ad-free application and does not have hidden or paid features that force the user to buy.
It is licensed under Apache License Version 2.0.
2- FairEmail
Our second pick here is FairEmail, it is a lightweight feature-rich app with dozens of cool features.
FairEmail comes with a Material based interface, unlimited accounts and email addresses support, unified inbox, and threading view to track the active conversation.
FairEmail supports Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, Yandex, iCloud email, and more.
The primary reason why we do like and use FairEmail is it is a privacy-focused application that ensures secure and private usage.
FairEmail privacy features include built-in encryption with OpenPGP, message reformatting to prevent phishing, confirming images and links to prevent tracking, and warning users if the message could not be authenticated.
We highly recommend FairEmail for your daily use.
3- InboxPager
InboxPager is a custom, lightweight, open-source email client for Android. It works with all popular email services like Gmail, Microsoft, Yahoo, Yandex, and mail.com.
InboxPage features
- Full IMAP, POP, and SMTP via SSL/TLS, with AES/PGP support.
- Smooth animation
- Attachment download
- Keep track of unread message
- Supports OpenPGP messages
- Display server certificates used in the last connection.
- Automatically convert texts from their declared character encoding to UTF-8
InboxPager is available to download from the F-Droid store.
InboxPage is licensed under GPLv3.0.
4- Criptext Android Client
Criptext Android Client is a privacy-first email client for Criptext email service that supports end-to-end encryption through a Signal Protocol library.
The app does not collect or share any data usage, and it is easy to use. It also does not have any advertisement or in-app purchases.
Criptext Android Client is licensed under GPLv2. You can download it from Google's Play Store through this link.
5- TypeApp
TypeApp is a multi-platform email agent/ client for Android, and iOS devices.
It is built to help you avoid email clutter by applying automatic clusters, which makes it an ideal email client if you have a dozen of email accounts.
- Unified inbox
- Smart push notification
- Universal access through IMAP, Microsoft Exchange, or POP3
- Email reminder and custom tasks
- Message filters
- Supports android wear (Android smartwatches)
- Built-in dark theme support
TypeApp can be downloaded for Android from Play Store, and Amazon App store.
6- OpenMail
OpenMail is a full-featured, open-source email client for android, which is a fork with K9-Mail but with more features and customizations.
It is licensed as K9-Mail under Apache License Version 2.0.
7- p≡p
p≡p email client is a multi-platform, decentralized, zero-trust email application. It is the only email client on this list with such technology.
p≡p is available for Android users from Google Play, F-Droid stores.
If you have an iOS device, you can download it for your device as well.
8- SimpleEmail
SimpleEmail is an open-source, native email client for Android. It offers simple easy email navigation, multiple accounts and identities support, two-way synchronization, offline-storage support, and more.
SimpleEmail also comes with a unified inbox, message search on server, settings export, same message view with complete JS/ styling and unsafe HTML disable, and it comes without advertisements, analytics, and tracking scripts.
You should have the F-Droid store on your phone to be able to download SimpleEmail.
Final note
The email client app is a necessary program for all sorts of users. But finding the right privacy-focused, and open-source alternatives is not an easy task.
We hope that our list will become useful for users who value their privacy and want open0-source alternative options for enterprise monopoly apps.
If you know of any other open-source, free email clients for Android that we did not list here, let us know in the comments below.
