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?

  • limerod@reddthat.comEnglish
    1·
    2 days ago

    I use FairEmail. I have most of emails downloaded on device and those which aren’t can be searched from the server.

    You can contact the dev by filling an online request form. Maybe, he can help with your search issue.

  • Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    2 days ago

    Aquamail (when it was good)

    I’m still using AquaMail, is there some news or scandal I missed? It works well enough for me, but then again I barely use email for anything other than a place for notifications so if they fucked up some other feature I probably wouldn’t have noticed.

    I know their attempts at monetization have been batshit insane, but I bought it ages ago for a couple of bucks and luckily missed out on all that. Is there any reason to move to another app if I’m grandfathered into lifetime premium?

  • kirk781@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    5·
    3 days 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.

        • SinningStromgald@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          3 days ago

          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.

          • finalarbiter@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            1·
            3 days ago

            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.worksEnglish
        2·
        3 days ago

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

  • Martin@feddit.nuEnglish
    6·
    4 days 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.

  • Engywook@lemm.eeEnglish
    51·
    2 days ago

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

    • Nilz@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      1·
      3 days 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.

  • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
    62·
    4 days ago

    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.worldEnglish
      2·
      4 days ago

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

          • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
            3·
            3 days ago

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

            • AbidanYre@lemmy.worldEnglish
              1·
              3 days ago

              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.eeEnglish
                2·
                3 days 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.

  • HeyJoe@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    3 days 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.

  • Lka1988@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    1·
    3 days 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”.

  • BoofStroke@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    1·
    3 days 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.