/FairEmail

Fully featured, open source, privacy friendly email app for Android

Primary LanguageJavaGNU General Public License v3.0GPL-3.0

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FairEmail

GitHub GitHub release GitHub commits since tagged version

Fully featured, open source, privacy oriented email app for Android

FairEmail is easy to set up and works with virtually all email providers, including Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo!

FairEmail might be for you if you value your privacy.

FairEmail is an email client only, so you need to bring your own email address.

FairEmail does not support non-standard protocols, like Microsoft Exchange Web Services and Microsoft ActiveSync.


FairEmail has been restored to the Play Store with help from Google's privacy and policy department. Please see here for what happened.


Main features

  • Fully featured
  • 100 % open source
  • Privacy oriented
  • Unlimited accounts
  • Unlimited email addresses
  • Unified inbox (optionally accounts or folders)
  • Conversation threading
  • Two way synchronization
  • Push notifications
  • Offline storage and operations
  • Common text style options (size, color, lists, etc)
  • Battery friendly
  • Low data usage
  • Small (~25 MB)
  • Material design (including dark/black theme)
  • Maintained and supported

This app is deliberately minimalistic by design, so you can concentrate on reading and writing messages.

This app starts a foreground service with a low priority status bar notification to make sure you'll never miss new emails.

Privacy features

  • Encryption/decryption supported (OpenPGP and S/MIME)
  • Reformat messages to prevent phishing
  • Confirm showing images to prevent tracking
  • Confirm opening links to prevent tracking and phishing
  • Attempt to recognize and disable tracking images
  • Warning if messages could not be authenticated

Simple

  • Quick setup
  • Easy navigation
  • No bells and whistles
  • No distracting "eye candy"

Secure

  • No data storage on third party servers
  • Using open standards (IMAP, POP3, SMTP, OpenPGP, S/MIME, etc)
  • Safe message view (styling, scripting and unsafe HTML removed)
  • Confirm opening links, images and attachments
  • No special permissions required
  • No advertisements
  • No analytics and no tracking (error reporting via Bugsnag is opt-in)
  • No Google backup
  • No Firebase Cloud Messaging
  • FairEmail is an original work, not a fork or a clone

Efficient

  • Fast and lightweight
  • IMAP IDLE (push messages) supported
  • Built with latest development tools and libraries

Pro features

All pro features are convenience or advanced features.

  • Account/identity/folder colors
  • Colored stars (instructions)
  • Notification settings (sounds) per account/folder/sender (requires Android 8 Oreo) (instructions)
  • Configurable notification actions
  • Snooze messages (instructions)
  • Send messages after selected time
  • Synchronization scheduling (instructions)
  • Reply templates (instructions)
  • Accept/decline calendar invitations
  • Add message to calendar
  • Filter rules (instructions)
  • Automatic message classification (instructions)
  • Search indexing (instructions)
  • S/MIME sign/encrypt (instructions)
  • Biometric/PIN authentication (instructions)
  • Message list widget
  • Export settings

Screenshots

Please see here for screenshots.

Downloads

Supported download locations:

Please see this FAQ about the differences between the different releases.

Important: after enrolling in the Advanced Protection Program you cannot use third party email apps anymore, please see this FAQ for more information.

The Gmail quick setup wizard can be used in official releases only (Play store or GitHub) because Google approved the use of OAuth for one app signature only.

Important: Gsuite accounts authorized with a username/password will stop working in the near future. Gsuite accounts authorized with the quick setup wizard (OAuth) will keep working.

To download a GitHub release you might need to expand the assets section to download the APK file.

The GitHub version is being updated more often than the Play store version. The GitHub release will automatically check for updates on GitHub (this can be turned off in the miscellaneous settings).

F-Droid builds new versions irregularly and you'll need the F-Droid client to get update notifications. To get updates in a timely fashion you are advised to use the GitHub release.

Important: There is support on the F-Droid build only if the version number of the F-Droid build is the same as the version number of the latest GitHub release. Please see here for more information on third-party builds.

Because F-Droid builds and GitHub releases are signed differently, an F-Droid build needs to be uninstalled first to be able to update to a GitHub release.

Certificate fingerprints:

MD5: 64:90:8E:2C:0D:25:29:B0:D0:26:2D:24:D8:BB:66:56
SHA1: 17:BA:15:C1:AF:55:D9:25:F9:8B:99:CE:A4:37:5D:4C:DF:4C:17:4B
SHA256: E0:20:67:24:9F:5A:35:0E:0E:C7:03:FE:9D:F4:DD:68:2E:02:91:A0:9F:0C:2E:04:10:50:BB:E7:C0:64:F5:C9

One line command to display certificate fingerprints:

unzip -p fairemail.apk META-INF/CERT.RSA | keytool -printcert

I do not hand over the signing keys of my apps to Google. Please see this Google blog and this article for more information.

Compatibility

FairEmail requires at least Android 5 Lollipop.

Due to many bugs in ChromeOS/Android, Chromebooks are not supported.

Individual message notifications are available on Android 7 Nougat and later only because earlier Android versions do not support notification grouping.

Notification settings (sounds) per account/folder/sender are available on Android 8 Oreo and later only because earlier Android versions do not support notification channels.

FairEmail will work properly on devices without any Google service installed.

Please see here for known problems.

Privacy

Please see here for the privacy policy.

Support

Please see here for a list of often asked questions and about how to get support.

Contributing

Documentation

Contributions to this document and the frequently asked questions are preferred in the form of pull requests.

Translations

  • You can translate the in-app texts of FairEmail on Crowdin
  • If your language is not listed, please send a message through this contact form

Source code

Building FairEmail from source code is straightforward with Android Studio. It is expected that you can solve build problems yourself, so there is no support on building.

Source code contributions are preferred in the form of pull requests. Please contact me first to tell me what your plans are.

Please note that by contributing you agree to the license below, including the copyright, without any additional terms or conditions.

Attribution

See here for a list of used libraries and associated license information.

Online translations are supported by:

Crowdin logo

Error reporting is sponsored by:

Bugsnag logo

Bugsnag monitors application stability and is used to help improve FairEmail. Error reporting is disabled by default, see also the privacy policy.

License

Copyright © 2018-2022 Marcel Bokhorst. All rights reserved.

GNU General Public License version 3

FairEmail is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

FairEmail is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.