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Gmail Go, a Lightweight Version of Google's Email App, Launched on Android (techcrunch.com)

Posted by msmash on from the for-the-emerging-markets dept.

Google has added a notable addition to its line of "Go" edition apps -- the lightweight apps designed primarily for emerging markets -- with the launch of Gmail Go. From a report: The app, like others in the Go line, takes up less storage space on users' smartphones and makes better use of mobile data compared with the regular version of Gmail. The app also offers standard Gmail features like multiple account support, conversation view, attachments, and push notifications for new messages. It also prioritizes messages from friends and family first, while categorizing promotional and social emails in separate tabs, as Gmail does. But like other Go apps, Gmail Go doesn't consume as much storage space on the device. In fact, according to numerous reports, Gmail Go clocked in at a 9.51 MB download, and takes up roughly 25 MB of space on a device, compared with Gmail's 20.66 MB download, and 47 MB storage space.

1 of 55 comments (clear)

  1. Use K9 for Android mail by trawg · · Score: 4, Informative

    If you're on Android & care about email I strongly recommend K-9 Mail.

    It is an open source mail client which is more like Thunderbird (i.e., it downloads messages locally) than the Gmail app. So you can open it even when you have no Internet and know that the email it downloaded will actually be available.

    I travel quite a bit and found this ability utterly indispensable after a few times where I had things like boarding passes, hotel registrations, etc in my Gmail and wasn't able to easily load them in the Gmail mobile app. I now have a "Travel" folder in my Gmail which I've set to always download all the contents, so I know when I go to a new city it will have anything I need into it, accessible when I get there, with or without Internet access.

    Maybe it has changed in the last few years but not having access to email that I had previously downloaded (i.e., "viewed on the cloud", which I suspect is what mostly happens with the Gmail app) was a total dealbreaker.

    Supports multiple accounts, IMAP & POP3, even PGP if you care about that. The only thing that doesn't work great is search - it only will search your locally downloaded mail - and even then it seems to be a bit flaky. In these cases I use the Gmail mobile web interface to find things.

    K-9 is a mail client on mobile that works much more like old school nerds would expect!