Database Develop

Mail App

Is it me of does the mail app suck big time. a good 75% of the time is gets a connection error. So I have been stuck heaving my gmail account grab my verizon email. And I am not a fan of doing that because if I reply it comes from my gmail account that I never planned on using.

K-9 Mail is supposedly a lot better. You'll find it in the market.

thanks I will have to, anything has to be better than that ****ty one that came installed.

K9Mail is being integrated into the Android OS. I use it all the time and I can see why they would do that, the app beats the built in app easily.

yeah k9 is awesome, it lets you set up how many emails to retrieve and doesn't auto delete accounts, it also has exchange support ()for the most part) and lets you download attachments.
yeah i heard that it will be part of the next update (hopefully)

yeah I did that, and have it set to send from my verizon.net account. But that only works to send on the PC. the phone will only send from my gmail account.
And I have been using k-9 now for the last 12 hours and it is 10 times better then the built in app. Only issue is it will not delete the mail off the server. So I submitted that as a bug.

[Q] Stock Email App and Activesync Push

I have 3 email accounts setup on my SGS (Bell, 2.1): 1 exchange activesync using the stock email client set on push, and 2 gmail using the stock gmail app. I have been getting very bad idle battery drain, it can be over 5%/hour while idle, and have also had my activesync 'stall' and stop retrieving new messages after a period of time. Using the 'other usage' page in battery history I found that the phone was not sleeping very much (at least 65% running) and on the 'partial wake' page the culprit was identified as "Email". When I switched my exchange account from push to 10min poll the running stat dropped below 20%, but email remains the highest partial wake usage. It seems that the stock email activesync push is having a hard time keeping the push connection running and this is both killing my battery and not retrieving my emails.
I have 2 questions:
1) What does the "Email" entry on the partial wake screen of battery history cover? Is it just the stock email app, or does it also include the gmail app?
2) I have also read from many people that push from an exchange server works great and is light on the battery. Could there be something about the particular exchange server I am using that is causing my activesync woes? Several iphones use push from this server with no apparent issues.
Thanks.

To follow up my original post, I have found some new information on this. I shut off my exchange/activesync syncing completely and my battery life went through the roof. My idle battery usage went from 3-10%/hour to under 0.5%/hour and I still had 2 gmail accounts syncing via push. The 'running' at idle went from 20%+ to about 1.5%, and the partial wake usage of 'email' went down to 0. From this I have drawn 2 conclusions: 1) The 'email' entry on the partial wake history does not include gmail. 2) The stock email app uses a ridiculous amount of time and power to sync email via activesync, i get between 6x and 20x the battery life when I am not using activesync. Has anyone else seen results like this? I am still wondering if this is a peculiarity of my exchange server or if activesycn is this bad in general?
Thanks.

Google & Microsoft
This is exactly what Google wants you to think.
Activesync is bad, so let me switch to Google, etc...
Google is playing with fire, in my opinion. People simply love outlook and exchange.
it's a million times easier for them to dump google phones and switch to a large available mobile OS's like iphone, Microsoft, Symbian, etc... instead of dumping outlook.
it's true Android is very attractive to users being on many devices and by many vendors but outlook is more precious and the alternatives google is offering are ridiculous compared to outlook.
after trying and searching right and left, i concluded that i have to sell both my Android phones back to iphone or Windows phone 7. Exchange Activesync is a red line.

[Q] Email not syncing (reproducible)

Coming from iPhone, I love the hardware. But, OS still seems to have some glitches. My biggest issue right not is email. My work email provides IMAP push IDLE, and never had problem with iPhone having email pushed immediately into my inbox.
Samsung or Android default email has been nothing but a headache. I've checked all the settings concerning sync include data usage > sync, etc, but the email will not sync. The funny thing is if I clear cash/data and reboot, reset the email account, PUSH will work for about 2-3 hours, then stops. It won't even pull by interval, and the only way to receive new email is to manually sync.
I've done it a number of times, and it always works for about a few hours, then simply stops. I've checked off peak schedule and any other settings that might interfere with push.
This is year 2013, and I cannot believe that a flagship android phone cannot push email consistently. This is true with my GMAIL as well. Is anyone else having the same issue? Doing a quick search, it seems like many people are having the same issue, and have given up. Having email pushed immediately is a very important feature for me, and I can't imagine android OS that's been around for many years hasn't figured this out. There seems to be no support from Samsungs's end.
If anyone can shed light, I'd really apprecaite it.

+1. I am using an LG G2 instead and all emails sync in real time with Push, no issues at all. However, on the N3 it just will not work, even after changing all the sync schedules and settings. If anyone know how to work around this, it would be awesome.

verendus said:
This is year 2013, and I cannot believe that a flagship android phone cannot push email consistently.
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Agreed. Mine shows the same symptoms. It's like amateur night at the clown college of software engineers.
verendus said:
There seems to be no support from Samsungs's end.
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Actually, it seems push email support is just a rumor, and Samsung denies it.
What an embarrassment.

I don't get why is there a Push option if it doesn't work.. I thought it was a bug.

I've heard good things about K9 mail client from the Play Store and it has push functionality.

verendus said:
Coming from iPhone, I love the hardware. But, OS still seems to have some glitches. My biggest issue right not is email. My work email provides IMAP push IDLE, and never had problem with iPhone having email pushed immediately into my inbox.
Samsung or Android default email has been nothing but a headache. I've checked all the settings concerning sync include data usage > sync, etc, but the email will not sync. The funny thing is if I clear cash/data and reboot, reset the email account, PUSH will work for about 2-3 hours, then stops. It won't even pull by interval, and the only way to receive new email is to manually sync.
I've done it a number of times, and it always works for about a few hours, then simply stops. I've checked off peak schedule and any other settings that might interfere with push.
This is year 2013, and I cannot believe that a flagship android phone cannot push email consistently. This is true with my GMAIL as well. Is anyone else having the same issue? Doing a quick search, it seems like many people are having the same issue, and have given up. Having email pushed immediately is a very important feature for me, and I can't imagine android OS that's been around for many years hasn't figured this out. There seems to be no support from Samsungs's end.
If anyone can shed light, I'd really apprecaite it.
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Not really helpful to your scenario, but I haven't had problems with push notifications using the baked in email client or with gmail.
Base email is tied via IMAP to an account on a webmail server I run.
Gmail is tied to my corporate google apps account.
Rooted on N900AUCUBMI1 baseband here.
Not that you should need a root to get this functionality, but maybe it would help?
Which baseband are you on? Maybe Push is broken in the newer build.

I've had trouble running stock on MI9, then rooted on MI1 and MI9. The type of email client doesn't seem to matter.

Odd. I am using Gmail for a few mail accounts and get quick delivery and all works fine. I have not tried the baked in email client on my Note 3, but I use it (with exchange) on my Note 2 without issue.
I guess instant mail delivery on my personal accounts isn't that critical to me but I can feel your pain.
If you are rooted, have you disabled any apps even remotely related to email?
If you are using gmail, do you have IMAP enabled within the Web client?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

I am running everything stock. I haven't rooted it yet, but will eventually give it a go when the firmware matures a little.
I am able to get a quick delivery on GMAIL app. But, I think something is seriously broken with the stock email app. Most people will say that push is not a supported feature. But, it works for an hour or two, then it will stop working. Bigger issue is that it doesn't fetch emails reliably even with intervals set. The top status will say the last synced time, but the emails never arrive in my inbox until I load manually.
Given that Samsung cheated on the benchmarking score, I wouldn't rule out the possibility of Samsung intentionally disabling push and pull feature. Just a guess. In fact, when I enable everything I used to run on iPhone (location service, bluetooth, wifi, google services, etc), N3 battery life falls pretty fast. I wonder if Samsung intentionally cropped polling for push to increase battery life.
Regardless, if push doesn't work property, this phone is not ready as a business tool. I spent the whole afternoon trying different combination, and I am about to give up. The only thing I haven't done is root, but I am not sure how that would affect the situation. I am also trying to find some sort of bug report page, but haven't found one.
This is a pretty major issue as my work requires immediate delivery of emails. I am keeping my fingers crossed until somebody crack this.

Spent the whole day resetting, deleting, adding account, playing with all sorts of sync settings, etc, and came to conclusion that the default email app is a horribly broken piece of junk. Keeping track of fetch interval and the stamp of the messages shows it cannot even pull the email on time from the server.
So I installed Evomail. What a difference! The app is beautifully designed, and has no problem pushing all my emails instantly. I am not sure if I am sold on the gesture thing as you can accidentally delete emails, but the icon has taken over the stock email on the bottom of the screen permanently for now. Wish Samsung would've done a better job on one of the email app.

K9 Mail eating more battery than 2h SOT?

Usually I get very great battery life (also very high screen on time thanks to DirtyUnicorns ROM + Kernel) but sometimes my battery is getting eaten away within 3 hours from 100℅ to 20℅. Looking at the screens I attached it looks like K9 Mail is eating so much battery? I have 2x gmail accounts + 2x IMAP (my own mail server) accounts active.
Are there some of my K9 Mail settings wrong or whats going on? Any ideas?
Thanks

Its that "mobile radio active" problem. Its often referred to as a bug.

Well according to google this is a common problem for some time now which hasnt been fixed.
Any other mail app auggestions?

Utini said:
Well according to google this is a common problem for some time now which hasnt been fixed.
Any other mail app auggestions?
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I think you'll find this issue with most apps right now. I use Mine because it's an amazing exchange all, but this happens there too and its pricey for some.

rootSU said:
I think you'll find this issue with most apps right now. I use Mine because it's an amazing exchange all, but this happens there too and its pricey for some.
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Actually I don't need exchange atm so other free appa might fit better for me. Also I never heard of Nine before but I will give it a try if you recommend it !
Too bad the same bug exists with Nine as well :/

Utini said:
Actually I don't need exchange atm so other free appa might fit better for me. Also I never heard of Nine before but I will give it a try if you recommend it !
Too bad the same bug exists with Nine as well :/
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I think it'll exist with any app that syncs. Android bug more than individual app bug.

rootSU said:
I think it'll exist with any app that syncs. Android bug more than individual app bug.
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I see, well then I still wonder if I shouls go with K9 or rather smh else. Nine won't support gmail

Utini said:
I see, well then I still wonder if I shouls go with K9 or rather smh else. Nine won't support gmail
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No, it's an ex change client only

rootSU said:
No, it's an ex change client only
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And if you would need tonuse gmail/imap...what would you use? ;P

Utini said:
And if you would need tonuse gmail/imap...what would you use? ;P
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i use the gmail app exclusively. it never ever drains extra battery from any of my devices, and my sync is always on.

Utini said:
And if you would need tonuse gmail/imap...what would you use? ;P
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I just use inbox.

rootSU said:
I just use inbox.
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i used to, but went back to the gmail app. i think i like it better.

simms22 said:
i used to, but went back to the gmail app. i think i like it better.
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I use inbox on mobile and desktop exclusively.. The gmail app is very good though, I just kind of like how the crap is more easily controlled for me .

this is the wrong thread for K9 discussions.. but I'm going to add to it anyway ?
K9 was my goto email app, still is in a way, but it just does not play nice with lollipop on any device. even using beta builds. if had no choice but to go to the gmail app since it can handle the exchange and ever changing bad decisions of Microsoft's email names and server labels. let alone having to run from website webmail settings.. yeah.. goto the gmail app, and give K9 a break until they get the wake lock issues worked out... other step may be to have tasker do sync toggle somehow..
go track down the beta builds and keep an eye out for changes that may be specific to its lollipop compatibilities.
Sent from my Nexus 9 using Tapatalk

simms22 said:
i use the gmail app exclusively. it never ever drains extra battery from any of my devices, and my sync is always on.
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Now I remember why I removed gmail...its missing "Mark as read" in the statusbar notification. Annoying as I wake up every day with ~15 Status Mails fromy servers which I usually "Mark as read" with one click (if the mail titles tell me that everything is okay with those servers). And since I use folders/filters/labels for mails I never delete/archive.

Utini said:
Usually I get very great battery life (also very high screen on time thanks to DirtyUnicorns ROM + Kernel) but sometimes my battery is getting eaten away within 3 hours from 100℅ to 20℅. Looking at the screens I attached it looks like K9 Mail is eating so much battery? I have 2x gmail accounts + 2x IMAP (my own mail server) accounts active.
Are there some of my K9 Mail settings wrong or whats going on? Any ideas?
Thanks
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4 is a lot of accounts. I presume that your custom imap accounts are set up to push? Are your gmail accounts set up to pop3 or imap? If they are pop3, then your phone is going to continually poll the servers for new mail, and this will eat battery like nobody's business.
There is also a question of the correctness of how you have configured your imap servers. I don't know what kind of experience you have in configuring and maintaining imap servers, but there are some rookie mistakes that can be made that can have a severe impact on client battery life. Some of dovecot's default settings are actually quite bad for mobile devices. I'm not particularly familiar with other imap servers, dovecot is my server of choice.
What stands out to me is the "E" in your signal meter. Edge. The slower the network, the longer the radio has to be active in order to transfer the same amount of data. So imagine polling for a minute every 2.5 minutes (2 accounts). That is a lot of radio time and a lot of battery.
---------- Post added at 02:32 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:26 PM ----------
Also not to create an argument here... but k9mail does very well on battery consumption on 5.x. Over this weekend (long weekend here in Canada), didn't use my phone much (construction/reno weekend), but something interesting caught my attention on Sunday afternoon. Having been taken off the charger 6AM SATURDAY morning (so it had been on battery for around 34 hours), it was claiming 4 days power remaining. That is ONE IMAP connection to a dovecot server that I maintain personally, the full time it was connected to an HSPA network (my service provider is exclusively HSPA).
So obviously, when everything is configured correctly, k9mail does NOT eat significant battery.

doitright said:
4 is a lot of accounts. I presume that your custom imap accounts are set up to push? Are your gmail accounts set up to pop3 or imap? If they are pop3, then your phone is going to continually poll the servers for new mail, and this will eat battery like nobody's business.
There is also a question of the correctness of how you have configured your imap servers. I don't know what kind of experience you have in configuring and maintaining imap servers, but there are some rookie mistakes that can be made that can have a severe impact on client battery life. Some of dovecot's default settings are actually quite bad for mobile devices. I'm not particularly familiar with other imap servers, dovecot is my server of choice.
What stands out to me is the "E" in your signal meter. Edge. The slower the network, the longer the radio has to be active in order to transfer the same amount of data. So imagine polling for a minute every 2.5 minutes (2 accounts). That is a lot of radio time and a lot of battery.
---------- Post added at 02:32 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:26 PM ----------
Also not to create an argument here... but k9mail does very well on battery consumption on 5.x. Over this weekend (long weekend here in Canada), didn't use my phone much (construction/reno weekend), but something interesting caught my attention on Sunday afternoon. Having been taken off the charger 6AM SATURDAY morning (so it had been on battery for around 34 hours), it was claiming 4 days power remaining. That is ONE IMAP connection to a dovecot server that I maintain personally, the full time it was connected to an HSPA network (my service provider is exclusively HSPA).
So obviously, when everything is configured correctly, k9mail does NOT eat significant battery.
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Thank you for your reply !
All my IMAP Accounts are using push (2x gmail + 2x my own server).
Could be that my server isnt configured perfectly. Mind giving me a few tips of what I should look for in my settings?
Yes I believe the battery drain could be because of bad radio signal. Maybe a Tasker script (if signal below 10% disable auto sync, which also disables push in k9) would help?
K9 in general has many settings which I am not sure of how they affect battery drain (e.g. sync forever or only last 31 days?) Which folders should have which priority and how to push/sync them. Would it make sense to make screenshots of my settings to compare them with yours?
Thanks !
Edit: In k9 I have not set all folders to class 2 except the important ones which are class 1 (inbox, sent, folders where new mails get moved from inbox to folder based on rules/labels). Push/sync only active for class 1 folder.
I did this because gmail has A LOT of standard folders and also an "all mails" folders which gets synced out of the box.
I also made a Tasker script which disabled autosync when I am NOT on 3G HSDPA or WIFI (maybe I should add 3G to the list of exclusion together with 3G HSDPA and WIFI?).

Utini said:
Thank you for your reply !
All my IMAP Accounts are using push (2x gmail + 2x my own server).
Could be that my server isnt configured perfectly. Mind giving me a few tips of what I should look for in my settings?
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A quick look over my notes suggests looking into the setting "imap_idle_notify_interval". Dovecot's default is 2 minutes. That means that the imap server will be sending over a battery eater every 2 minutes regardless of whether there is a push notification or not. Between 2 accounts (edit: and multiple paths per account), they could all hit at the same time, or they could hit at different times, so you're looking at server initiated wakeups all over the place. Note that k9mail has a default client initiated wakeup at 24 minute intervals. RFC2177 specifies 29 minutes -- the k9mail default is matched to give a little slack to let the server renew the connection 5 minutes after the expected client-initated wakeup. So set the server to 29 minutes.
Yes I believe the battery drain could be because of bad radio signal. Maybe a Tasker script (if signal below 10% disable auto sync, which also disables push in k9) would help?
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Is that even possible?
K9 in general has many settings which I am not sure of how they affect battery drain (e.g. sync forever or only last 31 days?) Which folders should have which priority and how to push/sync them. Would it make sense to make screenshots of my settings to compare them with yours?
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That setting really shouldn't affect anything, since ancient messages won't be changing much. I.e., there is no "sync" on stuff that remains the same -- it just gets downloaded once and sits there.
Thanks !
Edit: In k9 I have not set all folders to class 2 except the important ones which are class 1 (inbox, sent, folders where new mails get moved from inbox to folder based on rules/labels). Push/sync only active for class 1 folder.
I did this because gmail has A LOT of standard folders and also an "all mails" folders which gets synced out of the box.
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Click to collapse
I think I may be only performing push on inbox. IIRC, k9 creates a new idle connection for *each* path. This isn't a flaw in k9mail, but a limitation in IMAP protocol.
More edit: about the client-vs-server initiated wakeups.... if you set the server-side to more than the client side, then the server will not actually send the wakeup at all. Why would it if it knows that the connection has already been refreshed by the client within the timeout? Once the client has control over the idle refresh, k9mail can schedule the refresh messages in batches to send out all at once within the same system alarm/wakelock.

doitright said:
A quick look over my notes suggests looking into the setting "imap_idle_notify_interval". Dovecot's default is 2 minutes. That means that the imap server will be sending over a battery eater every 2 minutes regardless of whether there is a push notification or not. Between 2 accounts, the two could hit at the same time, or they could hit at different times, so you're looking at a server initiated wakeup EVERY MINUTE. Note that k9mail has a default client initiated wakeup at 24 minute intervals. RFC2177 specifies 29 minutes -- the k9mail default is matched to give a little slack to let the server renew the connection 5 minutes after the expected client-initated wakeup. So set the server to 29 minutes.
Is that even possible?
That setting really shouldn't affect anything, since ancient messages won't be changing much.
I think I may be only performing push on inbox. IIRC, k9 creates a new idle connection for *each* path. This isn't a flaw in k9mail, but a limitation in IMAP protocol.
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Well I could do push only on inbox and sync (every 24hours) on folders like " sent" and other semi-important folders.
I also made a Tasker script which disabled autosync when I am NOT on 3G HSDPA or NOT on WIFI (maybe I should add 3G to the list of exclusion together with 3G HSDPA and WIFI to disable autosync only on 2G?).

Utini said:
Well I could do push only on inbox and sync (every 24hours) on folders like " sent" and other semi-important folders.
I also made a Tasker script which disabled autosync when I am NOT on 3G HSDPA or NOT on WIFI (maybe I should add 3G to the list of exclusion together with 3G HSDPA and WIFI to disable autosync only on 2G?).
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I've never played with tasker in this space, so... try it and see how it works !

[Q] Energy Efficient Mail Client

I would like to ask for some advice-save trying all and every mail client for my Nexus 6. Point is, my current Type Mail client is imho using too much battery juice - roughly about 40% by the battery stats. Any suggestions, brothers, apart from "check mail every 6 hours and save that battery"?

I use MailWise. It's a very nice email client and I have mine set to check four separate email accounts every minute and my stats show it's used 9% of my battery today.

depends what type of mail. I use "nine" for exchange. It's pricey but the best exchange mail client I have used.

lotus49 said:
I use MailWise. It's a very nice email client and I have mine set to check four separate email accounts every minute and my stats show it's used 9% of my battery today.
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K9 - best I've ever used. Also - try changing your sync time to 15 minutes or more.

I used K-9 on my last phone but the UI is rather old-fashioned and I wanted a change to something nicer looking. So far, I haven't found anything that K-9 does that MailWise doesn't but there are so many email clients to choose from that it's very much a matter of personal taste.
40% battery use is a lot for an email client so I would have thought that almost anything would work better than the OP's current client.

balashandr said:
I would like to ask for some advice-save trying all and every mail client for my Nexus 6. Point is, my current Type Mail client is imho using too much battery juice - roughly about 40% by the battery stats. Any suggestions, brothers, apart from "check mail every 6 hours and save that battery"?
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Well there's your problem right there! Checking mail TAKES BATTERY.
I'm not trying to be funny.
Your problem is that you don't need to CHECK your mail to GET your mail.
Let me explain;
Use K9mail. Nothing else, only that.
Set it up to connect to your email server using ***IMAP*** and not pop3.
K9mail (and not other imap clients) can keep a TCP session open in order to receive new messages from the server when they arrive. Some people call this "push". It uses a feature of IMAP protocol called IDLE.

This is what Inbox needs. A sync interval option. I love inbox and I don't like having to turn sync off and checking mail manually. I will be looking for something similar to inbox, maybe with material design, with sync interval.
Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

It's pricey but the best exchange mail client I have used.

Reporting.
Thank y'all friends!
Now I have a list of your recommendations and I will go through it. But let me briefly report.
Changed sync interval on TypeMail to 30 minutes and got as low as 14% of total consumption.
Deleted TypeMail, installed CloudMail - use it currently with Exchange, iCloud, Hotmail (still remember this one) and Gmail. Currently the share of it is 4%. I do understand the IMAP "got_mail_flag", will check it as well.
Again^ thank you for your advices, XDA has assembled some great minds.