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M66B
FairEmail
Java2021–2024
M66B / FairEmail

FairEmail

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

24Distinct people
30Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
4.8KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

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

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use was verified in the last source check.

What people are saying

No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 5:05:26 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year30 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2021-02-14 12:26:42 UTC to 2024-10-24 19:24:27 UTC.

051015202021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 6 mentions; 0 submissions, 6 comments20212022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 21 mentions; 1 submissions, 20 comments20222023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 1 submissions, 0 comments2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2024

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC606
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC21120
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC110
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202

From the project README

An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.

Read the project’s introduction
Downloads • Privacy • Support • License Provided by FairCode B.V. FairEmail 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. 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 (<30 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 Optional Android 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/avatars 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 Automatically generate vCard attachments 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: GitHub Play store Play store (test) F-Droid — Please read this FAQ IzzyOnDroid (verified GitHub release) AppGallery (the AppGallery app can be downloaded here) Amazon (the APK file repackaged by Amazon is incomplete! An issue report was never answered by Amazon.) Please see this FAQ about the differences between the different releases. Important: Only the versions in the Play Store and GitHub are official releases. Support for other releases from alternative app stores, etc. is limited. Important: after enrolling in the Advanced Protection Program you cannot use third party email apps anymore, please see this FAQ for more information. 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. The best way to verify the integrity of an APK file is documented here. 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 Alternatively, you can use this online tool. 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 6 Marshmallow. FairEmail is supported on smartphones and tablets only, and for example not on TVs and E Ink devices. 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. Due to abuse, prior contact is required for pull requests. Translations You can translate the in-app texts of FairE
Read the full README on GitHub

What Hacker News says

6 sources
Frankly I worry about the unintended consequences of decisions like this. My university uses Google for many of their online services. Due to Google policies/recommendations, it de facto will not work on an Android Phone without Play Service, as IMAP is considered less safe and by policy is forced off, and since Google de facto makes it impossible for any app to use OATH outisde of Google Play[1]. As a result, I have no access to my University email on my Android phone, since I refuse to put Google Play Services on it (As an aside, it ironically works perfectly on my Pinephone). My university also forces a 2FA App called DUO Mobile. In the default configuration, you are forced to use an Android with Googple Play Services or iOS app, and we were forced to turn it on. Thankfully someone was able to figure out it's protocol to allow it to be
Read the rest
used on other apps [2]. For a while, DUO did not even support Firefox, so one was even then forced to use Chrome to sign in online with a U2F Device. While the digital ID is introduced now as an option, it wouldn't surprise me that this will be forced on students in 5-10 years, and now by default, they need to buy an Android/iOS phone to attend a University, then are forced to the Privacy Policy of companies that they have no choice for. Consequences of forcing Google or Apple on students aside, another unintended consequence I worry about is students who come from poor income backgrounds. One of my dear friends from college came from an extremely low income family who could barely afford to help her through college. She did not have a laptop because of the price, and used the computer labs on campus to do all of her computer work. She didn't have a cell phone either, also due to price. I get that a cell phone/cell phone plan is increasingly becoming a necessity, but I seriously worry about people for whom that is yet one more barrier to entry to college. [1] https://github.com/M66B/FairEmail/blob/master/FAQ.md#user-co... [2] https://github.com/rcslab/duo-cli
In Student IDs on iPhone and Apple Watch Expand to Canada and More US Universities
I was curious to see if FairEmail could work with OAuth without Google Play (I have a school Google account that does not allow me to log in without OAuth): https://github.com/M66B/FairEmail/blob/master/FAQ.md#user-co... "OAuth for Gmail is supported via the quick setup wizard. The Android account manager will be used to fetch and refresh OAuth tokens for selected on-device accounts. OAuth for non on-device accounts is not supported because Google requires a yearly security audit ($15,000 to $75,000) for this. You can read more about this here." You can see it here too: https://support.google.com/cloud/answer/9110914#zippy=%2Cexc...
In FairEmail: Open-source, privacy friendly email app for Android
FairEmail has (at least for me) reached a point of relative stability now - it's mostly iterative improvements and minor edge case/bug fixes. Good example, a recent release [1] fixes a couple of bugs that look to have originated from upstream Android projects, and added some new support for removal of "tracking" parameters from Facebook URLs. I'd agree with your comment that stripping out donations is "allowed", but "not nice" - I can only sympathize with the developer of FairEmail - it is clear he puts a huge amount of time into an app that has no "covert monetisation" like most apps. I was never particularly happy with other email apps and privacy (especially not the commercial closed source ones which receive your emails on their own server back-end, but keep this part quiet in their description, just to make push easier) - for me, at
Read the rest
least, FairEmail delivers the same or better, but all entirely on-device. There's even some basic learning-based on-device support for sorting mail automatically into folders (spam, FYI stuff, etc). That's for me the spirit of FairEmail - doing what others do server-side, on-device, without spying. But it is clearly a challenge to make money from this, and I think (based on FAQs) that the developer has a struggle with those who think that everything should be free. No relation to the app, just a happy user that likes to pay for open source apps rather than become the "product". [1] https://github.com/M66B/FairEmail/releases/tag/1.1488
In K-9 Mail is looking for funding

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