Everyday Use

This section covers reading, writing and deleting emails.

Reading Emails

To read emails you should turn start K-9 and click on the mail folder which contains messages that you want to read. If you want to read all new messages you can select the Unified Inbox.

 

We can see that a choice of different folders. The numbers shown indicate how may unread messages are in each folder.

When we select any one of the folders we see a list of different email messages it contains. There is a solid circle next to message that are unread and the text of the email subject is bolder.

To read one of the messages select the main part of the message.

K-9 Mail will then display the message. K-9 should be able to deal with most kinds of email including those that contain HTML formatting and images. 

In your header bar you can see several options.

 

Selecting the arrow keys allow you to move on to the next message or previous message shown in your folder list. Selecting the picture of the trash can / bin moves the message to the Trash folder and then proceeds to the next message in your list. 

If you want to return to the folder list of messages you can touch the K-9 icon of the robot dog and the arrow next to it.

 

Selecting the robot dog icon is also the way to return to the list of accounts from your Inbox.

If you want to refresh your accounts to check to see if new emails have arrived you can click on the refresh icon in the Inbox message view.

 

In your accounts window the Refresh icon will check all accounts.

Another way to refresh your emails in your inbox is to select any message and drag it towards the bottom of your screen. You will see the message Release to refresh.

 

If you release your selection then K-9 will load any new messages you have.  

Reading email attachments

To read or view email attachments select the Show attachments box.

You should then see more information about the attachment. If the attachment is an image you may see a preview of it. 

 

You have the option to either Open or Save your attachment/s.

Writing Emails

There are several ways to write an email message depending on where you are in the K-9 app.

Replying to an email

Depending on the size of your screen some options may be different. If you want to reply to an email that you are reading then you should either click on the the Reply icon.

 

If the Reply icon is not visible then select the More Actions icon in the top left of your screen and select Send.

Selecting Send gives you several options.

The options are Reply - Reply all - Forward and Share. 

The Share option will give you different options to share the email text on different apps on your Android device.

Reply will reply only to the sender or email list that you have been sent from. Reply all replies to all recipients of the email and Forward allows you to send the contents of the email to another person.

 

The process for sending email for all three options is similar to writing new emails.

Writing new emails

To write a new email you can click on the compose message icon in the folder window.

 

In your Inbox view, to send a new message touch the More Actions icon  and then select Compose. 

 

The next screen you see will be the Compose window.

The options here include the To box where you should enter emails you want to send your emails to, a Subject box for the title of your email, in your Message text enter the the text of your email. 

To send a simple email to one person fill out these options and select on the send mail icon which is a right facing triangle / arrow head at the top of the screen. 

Along the top line of the Compose window there are other icons which help us. Touch the icon with two heads and you will see more options appear to allow us to send mail more flexibly.

The CC and BCC fields appear and we can enter emails here. CC is a field that indicates that the person whose email is in CC is not the main recipient and may not be expected to reply but they are included in the mail as they will find the information useful. 

BCC is similar but the B here stands for 'blind' as other recipients do not see the identity of people in the BCC fields.

To the right of the email fields you will see another icon of a head with a + sign. This is a way of adding the emails of people in your contacts.

After clicking on the icon you can select contacts from your contact list by touching them. They will then appear in the relevant box of your email. 

Sending Attachments

One of the great things about using email is that you can send just about any kind of file to someone else as an attachment to your message. To do this click on the icon of the paper clip.

Depending on how your Android device is configured you may see different options to allow you to select a file from your phone or tablet.

 

Use your File Manager or similar application to choose the file you want to attach. 

Your file will normally be on your internal SD card or your external SD card. If you want to attach a photo you have taken may be in your DCIM folder. A file you downloaded may well be in the Download folder. You may have to investigate a bit if you are unfamiliar with the files on your phone.

Select the file you want to attach. You should now see it attached to your message.

When you send your email you should see a notification.

Deleting Emails

To delete an email you are reading you can touch the icon of the Trash bin.

To delete more than one email at a time you can do this when you have a list of messages in any of your folders.

To select your first email touch the area to the very left of the summary of one message that you want to delete. This can be a bit tricky so aim well.

You should see a tick appear in the box and a message appear in the header saying 1 Selected.

 

Continue to select other messages you want to delete.

Now that one message is selected, you can touch any part of the message summary to select it.

 

To delete all selected messages you can touch the delete / trash bin icon. This moves the messages to the Trash folder of your account. 

You will also see other icons which give us options to help us manage our mail. The icon of the envelope gives the option to set the main selected to be marked as read or unread.

The icon of three messages together in a pile moves selected messages to your Archive folder.

The More Actions icon of three squares gives you more options which will be covered in another section.