Can I safely remove Google's Mail app when using K9mail?

Help Fairphone 1
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I’m all for independence from Google, but I once “installed Google Apps” in the very beginnings of my FP, bought a couple of apps, then discovered other markets (and of course F-Droid!) and re-installed the latest upgrade with Fairphone Updater, which resulted apparently in blanking many things Google.
But the Google Mail app remains, even though I only use K9mail.

My question is simple: if I remove the G. Mail app (basically, from the app drawer), does this remove other, more worrying things?

Because now, I do have a lot of things ongoing (many mail accounts, many calendar syncs…) and I would be worried if I wrecked something…

TIA!
Hervé

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GMail shouldn’t affect K9Mail because the accounts only exist in the app. Check the accounts in your phone’s settings, your mail accounts don’t appear.

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GMail embeds itself quite deeply into the system, I think. As do other GApps. However, K9 should not be affected.

If I may be so bold yet again to suggest to use TitaniumBackup? :wink:

  1. You can use it to remove apps, even system apps, taking the risk to cripple you productive system (but at the same time securing yourself a bit against it because you could restore from the backup).
  2. You could do a full backup, also copying your TitaniumBackup apk somewhere where you can find it, factory-reset your phone to get totally rid of Google Apps, re-install TitaniumBackup from the apk (i.e. without the Google PlayStore), and restore your apps (including ones you bought at the PlayStore) one by one.

Or, you just leave it as it is. If it works, why change it? The extra symbol should not bother you. :slight_smile:

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Like humorkritik has written, GMAIL is deeply embedded in the system and removing it can make your system instable.

Bevore removing, I would first freeze it (so its easier to reactivate when you’ve got problems) with a tool like App Quarantine https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ramdroid.appquarantine.

Thats also a way when a app makes probably problems and you’re not 100% shure that the problem is caused in this App.

Best regards
Bobby

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Excellent. FWIW I found AppQuarantine on Mobogenie (also an intrusive thing, but what wouldn’t I do rather than google store), but it’s not on F-Droid.
Thanks again, I’m now doing a lot of safe experiments thanks to you :slight_smile:

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Mobogenie App contains
AdMob
Millenial Media
MoPub
and Facebook SDK.
For me that ins’t better than Google Play. :wink:

Best regards
Bobby

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You are right -but then where to find a reasonable place to buy apps without being invaded?
I see Slideme seems to feature a reasonable range of apps, but they immediately require one creating an account, so at this time I didn’t continue…
–indeed that’s why I prefer apps which you can buy directly from their developer, a category we even built a thread about here… but not all are like that…

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