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- # SimpleEmail
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- If you have a question, please check the frequently asked questions below first.
- At the bottom you can find how to ask other questions, request features and report bugs.
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- ## Frequently Asked Questions
-
- **Which permissions are needed and why?**
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- * have full network access (INTERNET): to send and receive email
- * view network connections (ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE): to monitor internet connectivity changes
- * run at startup (RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED): to start monitoring on device start
- * foreground service (FOREGROUND_SERVICE): to run a foreground service on Android 9 Pie and later, see also the next question
- * prevent device from sleeping (WAKE_LOCK): to keep the device awake while synchronizing messages
- * Optional: read your contacts (READ_CONTACTS): to autocomplete addresses and to show photos
- * Optional: find accounts on the device (GET_ACCOUNTS): to use [OAuth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OAuth) instead of passwords
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- **Why is there a permanent notification shown?**
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- A permanent status bar notification with the number of accounts being synchronized and the number of operations pending is shown
- to prevent Android from killing the service that takes care of receiving and sending email.
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- Most, if not all, other email apps don't show a notification with the "side effect" that new email is often not or late being reported.
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- Background: this is because of the introduction of [doze mode](https://developer.android.com/training/monitoring-device-state/doze-standby) in Android 6 Marshmallow.
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- **What are operations and why are they pending?**
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- The low priority status bar notification shows the number of pending operations, which can be:
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- * add: add message to remote folder
- * move: move message to another remote folder
- * delete: delete message from remote folder
- * send: send message
- * seen: mark message as seen/unseen in remote folder
- * flag: star/unstar remote message
- * headers: download message headers
- * body: download message text
- * attachment: download attachment
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- Operations are processed only when there is a connection to the email server or when manually synchronizing.
- See also [this FAQ](#FAQ16).
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- **What is a valid security certificate?**
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- Valid security certificates are officially signed (not self signed) and have matching a host name.
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- ~~**What does 'no IDLE support' mean?**~~
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- ~~Without [IMAP IDLE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMAP_IDLE) emails need to be periodically fetched,~~
- ~~which is a waste of battery power and internet bandwidth and will delay notification of new emails.~~
- ~~Since the goal of SimpleEmail is to offer safe and fast email, providers without IMAP IDLE are not supported.~~
- ~~You should consider this a problem of the provider, not of the app.~~
- ~~Almost all email providers offer IMAP IDLE, with as notable exception Yahoo!~~
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- **How can I login to Gmail / G suite?**
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- Preferably select Gmail as provider and select an account on your device.
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- To login to Gmail / G suite you'll often need an app password, for example when two factor authentication is enabled.
- See here for instructions: [https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/185833](https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/185833).
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- If this doesn't work, see here for more solutions: [https://support.google.com/mail/accounts/answer/78754](https://support.google.com/mail/accounts/answer/78754)
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- **Why are messages in the outbox not moved to the sent folder?**
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- Messages in the outbox are moved to the sent folder as soon as your provider adds the message to the sent folder.
- If this doesn't happen, your provider might not keep track of sent messages or you might be using an SMTP server not related to the provider.
- In these cases you can enable the account option *Store sent messages* to let the app move messages from the outbox to the sent folder after sending.
- There is a menu to move sent messages to the sent folder after enabling this option.
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- **Can I use a Microsoft Exchange account?**
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- You can use a Microsoft Exchange account if it is accessible via IMAP.
- ActiveSync is not supported at this moment.
- See here for more information: [https://support.office.com/en-us/article/what-is-a-microsoft-exchange-account-47f000aa-c2bf-48ac-9bc2-83e5c6036793](https://support.office.com/en-us/article/what-is-a-microsoft-exchange-account-47f000aa-c2bf-48ac-9bc2-83e5c6036793)
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- **What are identities?**
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- Identities represent email addresses you are sending *from*.
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- Some providers allow you to have multiple email aliases.
- You can configure these by setting the email address field to the alias address and setting the user name field to your main email address.
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- **What does 'UIDPLUS not supported' mean?**
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- The error message *UIDPLUS not supported* means that your email provider does not provide the IMAP [UIDPLUS extension](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4315).
- This IMAP extension is required to implement two way synchronization, which is not an optional feature.
- So, unless your provider can enable this extension, you cannot use SimpleEmail for this provider.
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- ~~**Why is STARTTLS for IMAP not supported?**~~
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- ~~STARTTLS starts with a not encrypted connection and is therefore not secure.~~
- ~~All well known IMAP servers support IMAP with a plain SSL connection, so there is no need to support STARTTLS for IMAP.~~
- ~~If you encounter an IMAP server that requires STARTTLS, please let me know.~~
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- ~~For more background information, please see [this article](https://www.eff.org/nl/deeplinks/2018/06/announcing-starttls-everywhere-securing-hop-hop-email-delivery).~~
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- ~~tl;dr; "*Additionally, even if you configure STARTTLS perfectly and use a valid certificate, there’s still no guarantee your communication will be encrypted.*"~~
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- **How does encryption/decryption work?**
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- First of all you need to install and configure [OpenKeychain](https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.sufficientlysecure.keychain/).
- To encrypt a message before sending, just select the menu *Encrypt*. Similarly, to decrypt a received message, just select the menu *Decrypt*.
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- **How does search on server work?**
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- You can start searching for messages on sender, recipient, subject or message text by using the magnify glass in the action bar of a folder (not in the unified inbox because it could be a collection of folders).
- The server executes the search. Scrolling down will fetch more messages from the server.
- Searching by the server might be case sensitive or case insensitive and might be on partial text or whole words, depending on the provider.
- Search on server is a pro feature.
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- **How can I setup Outlook with 2FA?**
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- To use Outlook with two factor authentication enabled, you need to create an app password.
- See [here](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/12409/microsoft-account-app-passwords-two-step-verification) for the details.
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- **Can you add ... ?**
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- * More themes/black theme: the goal is to keep the app as simple as possible, so no more themes will not be added.
- * Previewing message text in notification/widget: this is not always possible because the message text is initially not downloaded for larger messages.
- * Executing filter rules: filter rules should be executed on the server because a battery powered device with possibly an unstable internet connection is not suitable for this.
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- **Why are messages not being synchronized?**
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- Possible causes of messages not being synchronized (sent or received) are:
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- * The account or folder(s) are not set to synchronize
- * The number of days to synchronize is set to low
- * There is no usable internet connection
- * The email server is temporarily not available
- * Android stopped the synchronization service
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- So, check your account and folder settings and check if the accounts/folders are connected (see the legend menu for the meaning of the icons).
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- On some devices, where there are lots of applications competing for memory, Android may stop the synchronization service as a last resort.
- Some Android versions,
- in particular of Huawei (see [here](https://www.forbes.com/sites/bensin/2016/07/04/push-notifications-not-coming-through-to-your-huawei-phone-heres-how-to-fix-it/) for a fix)
- or Xiaomi (see [here](https://www.forbes.com/sites/bensin/2016/11/17/how-to-fix-push-notifications-on-xiaomis-miui-8-for-real/) for a fix)
- stop apps and services too aggressively.
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- **Why does manual synchronize not work?**
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- If the *Synchronize now* menu is dimmed, there is no connection to the account.
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- See the previous question for more information.
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- **How do I enable the notification light?**
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- Before Android 8 Oreo: there is an advanced option in the setup for this.
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- Android 8 Oreo and later: see [here](https://developer.android.com/training/notify-user/channels) about how to configure notification channels.
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- **Why do I get 'Couldn't connect to host' ?**
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- The message *Couldn't connect to host ...* means that SimpleEmail was not able to connect to the email server.
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- Possible causes are:
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- * A firewall is blocking connections to the server
- * The email server is refusing to accept the connection
- * The host name or port number is invalid
- * The are problems with the internet connection
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- If you are using a VPN, the VPN provider might block the connection because it is too aggressively trying to prevent spam.
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- **Why do I get 'Too many simultaneous connections' ?**
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- The message *Too many simultaneous connections* is sent by the email server when there are too many connections to the same email account at the same time.
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- Possible causes are:
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- * There are multiple email clients connected to the same account
- * The same email client is connected multiple times to the same account
- * The previous connection was terminated abruptly for example by losing internet connectivity
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- **What is browse messages on the server?**
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- Browse messages on the server will fetch messages from the email server in real time
- when you reach the end of the list of synchronized messages, even when the folder is set to not synchronize.
- You can disable this feature under *Setup* > *Advanced options* > *Browse messages on the server*.
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- **Why can't I select an image, attachment or a file to export/import?**
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- If a menu item to select a file is disabled (dimmed),
- likely the [storage access framework](https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/providers/document-provider),
- a standard Android component, is not present,
- for example because your custom ROM does not include it or because it was removed.
- SimpleEmail does not request storage permissions, so this framework is required to select files and folders.
- No app, except maybe file managers, targetting Android 4.4 KitKat or later should ask for storage permissions because it would allow access to *all* files.
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- **Can I help to translate SimpleEmail in my own language?**
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- Yes, you can translate the texts of SimpleEmail in your own language, please open a [pull requests][pull-requests] with the changes,
- we are looking for web service to automated the process.
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- <br>
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- If you have another question, want to request a feature or report a bug, please open a [issue][], send a [email](distopico@riseup.net) or open [PR][pull-requests].
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- [issue]: https://framagit.org/dystopia-project/simple-email/issues
- [pull-requests]: https://framagit.org/dystopia-project/simple-email/merge_requests
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