Free Deco Mail iPhone Apps
Thursday, February 10th, 2011 | 67 Comments 
So one of the first things I did was test out a bunch of free deco mail apps for the iPhone! 
Surprisingly using these seemed easy at first but after testing the following 7 apps I realized no two were alike! 
And in the end I only found one that performed well plus had a multitude of features and free emoji.
OK, so the list is as follows from favorite to least favorite!
- デコメーラー [Deco Mailer]
- MAIL DECO
- デコメリー [deco merii]
- KAWAII MAIL
- デコリメール [emojimail]
- Pocket Emoji
- きゃらめる子ちゃん
デコメーラー
Japanese language only. Very sleek! When I installed it I thought, “Oh, now THIS ONE has that very “iPhone feel!” Haahaa. 
I actually find that to be a double-edged sword. I would prefer something so cute your eyes bleed BUT it is nice to have something sleek and ‘grown up’ to use too. The free emoji (icons) provided are a decent amount and pretty cute. Could use more though~ When selecting an emoji it brings the keyboard back up immediately. Kinda useful instead of having to ‘x’ out of the deco options like other apps. Allows you to rearrange your emoji order as well, so you can put your favorites first.
Email text is entered in a text field and added into the body of the email when “return” is pressed. Helpful for adding in emoji. 
A bit strange at first but it’s easy to get used to. I actually even prefer it now compared to straight input. Decent amount of font/text manipulation as well with size and color options blinking and scrolling text. Very easy to add these styles into the email too. Also background color changeable. Favorite feature is how easy it is to insert photos into your email or even attach them with their “file attachment” option. This option is even better than the iPhone’s built-in email photo sending ability!
Best of all this app is extremely stable. No crashing. 
Wish it allowed a nickname though for your email. When sending recipients will see your email address rather than a set nickname like “Jenny.” Also doesn’t capitalize letters at the beginning of a new sentence because Japanese language only.
This is the one I use the most!
MAIL DECO
Mostly Japanese language only. Very sweet style list menu layout. Decent amount of free emoji including 3 pages worth of lines that are quite cute and animated. Can also insert photos easily into email body. Some very cute template options.
Lots of text manipulation options from color to size to position to blinking! However changing text style is difficult and requires multiple steps that feel a bit cumbersome. 
Emails are limited to 1,000 characters which is helpful if you’re email another cell phone that’s an older model but mostly I think it’s a bit of a drawback. 
Also when editing the email, and you’re done, when you go back to send that’s when you should enter the recipient’s address and subject because it tends to wipe those text fields out. Annoying. No nickname option as well. Emoji shop can pauses out sometimes.
デコメリー
Japanese language only. Also has separate typing area for text outside of email body. Great emoji selection. You have 500 to choose from and you then arrange 90 favorites worth to use for email. You can change them out however you like. Nice background and text manipulations. Helpful arrows for navigating email body and ‘x’ brings up/takes away keyboard nicely. Icon resizing as well! A very robust deco email app like a full email center. Can insert photos but must be “pre-saved” into app’s folder before writing email. Doesn’t capitalize letters automatically.
Has crashed and become unresponsive a few times. This one was my favorite until it started crashing randomly. Not a lot but enough to make you weep for lost emails.
KAWAII MAIL
English language. Has a great selection of free emoji. No text or background manipulations. Does allow for an email “nickname” within the app. Text is entered directly into body of email. No separate typing area. Saves draft on “preview.”
A good option, seems stable, but just a pure emoji only app.
デコリメール
English language. Cute cartoon-style menus. Good amount of free emoji and templates. A bit limited text manipulation. Extremely poor “undo” button placement! I constantly hit “undo” while typing and it gets very frustrating! Also hard to navigate despite being in English, haahaa! Emoji are separated into different categories but bright yellow frame hides helpful navigation markers. Buttons in general just not very responsive which I found frustrating.
Pocket Emoji
Japanese language only. Just don’t. 
A “money maker” type that wants you to buy lots of emoji. The design is very cute though, just like purikura! But it’s hard to navigate with a cumbersome keyboard. Doesn’t allow double-tap punctuation. Doesn’t capitalize letters. Wipes email, address, and subject when trying to send sometimes. 
きゃらめる子ちゃん
Japanese language only. Crashes a lot. Just really, crashes & crashes. 
It’s made my the toy maker TAKARATOMY. As far as I can tell it has decent amount of text manipulation but limited emoji. Hard to test this one because it crashes constantly!
Other Comments
For all of these most everything (icons, text style, background styles) display properly in recipient emails. 
I especially tested gmail using the web interface (gmail.com) and a POP3 email using Thunderbird email client. The most common style to not show was scrolling text and sometimes background colors. Confirmed that all styles appear properly in iPhone email client and a few other smart phone email clients. However, Mike has a Windows7 phone and he couldn’t see the icons. 
That was the only incident where the styles and icons did not display properly.
Some are Japan App Store Only 
But you can make a Japanese iTunes account! Just don’t choose a payment option when creating your Japan Store account!!!! Unless you have a Japanese credit card or bank account you cannot connect a US (or other) payment type to a Japanese account or else it’ll switch back to your country’s store.
You can then download all the free Japan-only apps you like! You CAN buy from Japan iTunes IF you have a Japanese iTunes Gift Card! You can buy them online apparently
I started reviewing 2 other free deco apps but they’re not so great, they crash a lot too. They’re DecoLetter and LoveDecoLetter. So far I don’t really highly recommend them but haven’t tested them much either. 
The above are all organized in order of recommended
Jenny posted at 9:34 pm ; Thursday
TAGS: iphone, cute stuff, review
67 Comments »
« Bee My Valentine | Eyemazing Harajuku Doll Series »
//view HOME PAGE
Jenny
Looking at these apps make me wanna get an iPhone!!
So pretty!
Maybe the crashes will be fixed with a new update soon, hopefully!
Here’s hoping! But there are enough good ones that don’t crash that it’s fine
what a coincidence ~ i was just thinking about downloading one of these a couple days ago!! but i’m not sure which one.. ?_?
which of the ones in the post would you recommend the most?
The first
They’re listed in order of recommended 
i’m kinda “blind” so ~ my eyes didn’t catch that part! ^^
thanks anyway ~~
I wish you had some Android recs, too! But there might be some equivalents…
I’m not sure how open downloading Android apps is since I never had one. I assume it’s easier to download non-English apps on Android than locked down iTunes region stores. Either way the android phones are being heavily advertised in Japanese fashion mags right now to compete with the iPhone. So you’ll probably see some deco mail apps come out in the near future \
/
I have loads of emoji apps but I don’t really use them because none of my friends use their email often ;( A few of my emoji apps are “gmail only”. Do those apps allow you to use your own preferred email service?
No ;_; these are all softbank and gmail only too. Thankfully all I use is gmail. My sushi-cat one I just keep on my home computer (why it gets checked so less often lol) At least the default mail app on iPhone supports non-conforming addresses ;P
I used to buy my Japanese iTunes store credit over at jbox.com. They also used to give some help as to how to set up an account for the J iTunes too.
Thanks for the review~ I’ve been looking for a cute app for gmail on my iPod4… do you know whether any of these would be compatable?
Yeah I saw that they were selling them & bookmarked it since I trust them having ordered there before! But ‘m still kinda on the fence ONLY because I’m already so “meh” on spending money on US apps already, LOL.
I only have the old 1st gen iPod touch and I KNOW none of these email apps would even install on it but these are all free so I’d just download & try it out for yourself
These are cuteee!! too bad i don’tj have an iphone T_T will have one soon !! yay
Congrats!
Cuuuuute, thanks for the reviews Jenny! ^^ I don’t email people (facebook is the way to go for me
) so I always love looking at purikura/photo decorating apps lol :3
Yea I’ve tried a few of those too, but not too impressed with any of the free ones yet.
I never realized how many different iPhone apps there were for deco mail! Unfortunately I don’t use my e-mail too often… U.U Thank you for sharing, though! :3
Email is the new dinosaur I guess, haahaa! I only have a handful of people I email actually too~~ everyone else wants text or facebook msg :(
Oooh interesting. I never knew about this or any free Japanese apps for the iphone. Now I’m curious to see what Japanese apps are available for the iTouch…
I’m sure there are plenty out there since most of all these are for the Touch too
o-oh. now you’ve totally inspired me to go see if i can do something like this to my android korean phone!! i love customizing electronics to look cuter/be unique
Korean phone, I’M SURE! I have this korean camera app that I LOVE but I suck at searching for Korean apps because I can’t speak a lick of it!!! :(
i hope they have this on andriod too. thanks for sharing ^^
ps: im feelin sore i didnt manage to catch your giveaway in time…>
Awe I’m sorry you missed the giveaway ;_;
My mom just got the Evo 4g and since I’ll be getting mine soon, every time I see her, I jack her phone and start searching for different apps~
I found a good Japanese IME app because the Evo doesn’t come with Japanese input! Crazy, right?
I’m going to look for decomail apps! I have all of mine saved from my Softbank phone from Japan, hahaha!
Ah I understand though, BB didn’t even HAVE a Japanese input or anything! I couldn’t even read Japanese text on it. Then I get the iPhone and in 2 clicks I added a full Japanese keyboard, haahaa. I was SO happy
Gosh, u inspired me, but I never email, I only use texts :( I wish there were an app for text-deco lol. Great review btw! Please do more
Yeah I think because Japan emails phone to phone LIKE text that there are only deco mail apps. My friend had a really hard time understanding what a text/sms message was compared to an email phone-to-phone.
Well, I’m on Crackberry.
However I do plan on getting the next iPhone so I’ll be reviewing your apps posts then! 
(”Trouble-spots”? I don’t see ‘em.
Concealer and BB Cream! And lots of it
DD!!!
Just a word of caution you WILL have blackberry withdrawal!! I don’t like thinking about it but your BB has some features iPhone, even the new one, just WON’T. Try not to think about it, haahaa xD I know I can’t or I feel sad. BB is more addictive than iPhone but, for me at least, iPhone is more “useful” in a more fulfilling way.
Hee hee…thanks for the warning!
Oh and I hope I get that unicorn….er, white iPhone. 
Which BB cream are you using? I’ve yet to find one I like as the ones I’ve tried so far have felt heavy.
I use Missha M. It goes on lighter than any base I’ve used but I might just be used to it, idk, lol.
I predict that the iPhone5 will ONLY BE WHITE! Because it would make sense. Then everyone will wait forever for black to release. Wouldn’t that be something!
Those are some awesome apps and really cute too! I desperately want an iphone but I can’t type on it with my nails LOL so I had to choose between phone or nails and I decided nails =P Sigh I often wish that Japan would open up their market to America a bit more, I often find some awesome online sites but of course, they only ship within Japan, boo!
haha thanks for the comment on my nails! I just recently got them done so the Disney ones are a-bye-bye now! My bf and I were quite surprised about the un-sweetened ice tea! Especially when it’s my bf’s fav soft drink product lol but he lived on pink lemonade after that! and yes SWEET TEA FOREVER!!!
Pink Lemonade, mmmm!
All these apps are very cute!(*^ω^*)
I know right!
I was all ‘cool’ until I realized that it probably wouldn’t be able to display in a regular e-mail…but FALSE! I tested it out and it worked just fine! Thanks for sharing! I will definitely use this for sappy mails
I checked out two more if you are interested…PAG Mail and Deco Letter…both charge $1 for each set…even though the stuff on PAG Mail’s website is free! orz
Oh is that the same Deco Letter as I linked above? It crashes on my iPhone 4 so I deleted it.
Yup! I thought you mentioned the name somewhere in your post, but when I ctrl+f’d I put in a space so I couldn’t find it the first time.
I CANNOT HANDLE TEH CUTE
lol~
Haahaa! The first one is a million times less cute after seeing all the others isn’t it!
kawaii that a ipod right? oh… i more cool than my brother have (lol) is only in japan :( i want one
Yea works on iPhone and iPod
Hi Jenny this is my first time commenting your blog, but I have been falloving you for a long time ^.^ .
I realy like your blog and you give me lots of new ideas \(^.^)/
I would like to ask you a question about circle lenses
are they realy as dangerous as everyone says and is it true that you can only wear them for 8 hours? cuz I wear my normal lenses for abour 12 hours ^.^
ps. these apps are realy kawaii~!!
Normal lenses, like daily wears that are clear, can be worn MUCH longer because they allow more oxygen to pass through. They also expire faster because of that too! Circle lenses are thicker, larger, and usually expire after a year. They let in less oxygen so you shouldn’t wear them as long. 8 hours is about as long as you should wear them because your eyes need oxygen
If you keep your eyes from “breathing” for too long, too often (like months) the veins in your eye will become larger trying to get oxygen to your cornea. This can happen if you wear ANY contacts for too long, like sleeping in contacts not meant to be slept in.
However, circle lenses are NO MORE DANGEROUS than daily wear contacts as long as you follow the same precautions. Aside from not wearing them for too long, no sleeping in them too, just clean them regularly like your daily wear lens and all will be fine. They’re not dangerous. It’s just that people who don’t already wear contacts buy them, have no idea how to clean and store them, and they get infections out of ignorance. People can get infections from daily wear lenses just as easily, it just isn’t talked about as much because it’s not some “crazy new trend” the news can use to scare people.
I wrote a long how to here http://sushi-cat.net/2010/02/02/max-pure-brown-circle-lenses/
Thanx sooo much ^.^ that really helped me.
I haven’t been here for a while, but I’ve been following you on Twitter for a while :3 I love the new layout, and I wish I had an iPhone T_T~ Those apps do look cute indeed!
Welcome back
These are so cute! I don’t have an iphone T_T
But I love my phone
As long as you love your current phone no need to change \
/
hO HO….u are making me feel like getting an iphone now…
Haahaa sorry!
Trying out some on my ipod.
Thanks so much T___T;
Now it feels like I’m using my cellphone in Japan again haha
Haahaa I bet it does!
These are soooo cute. I really want an i-phone but can’t afford it at this point… *fail*
By the way I got my first circle lenses and now I’m totally addicted to this thing, haha…
You did!? Oh which!!??? Aren’t they fun \
/ You feel such a huge change by something so little!
I bought GEO Angel Brown. I thought they would be decent enough for a first time circle lens wearer like me, lol. And I do love them a lot. And guess what, just bought another pair, seeshell cosmo grey, haha. so excited
Hi again ^.^ I have one more question (I hope I’m not bothering you.) can you wear circle lenses for 8 hours and than change to your normal contact lenses? cuz I’m blind without lenses.
I suppose you could, but don’t you have glasses? Ah I guess maybe I could see wanting to wear contacts if you put circle lenses in early-early morning. You know YOUR eyes better than any body else!!
So if they don’t feel tired after the circle lenses and feel fine putting in normal contacts go for it. Circle lenses make my eyes feel tired some days so I take them out and then put on my glasses but usually it’s evening by then, like 7 pm or later or something~~
Thanx alot~! ^.^
If I had to choose from the apps based on their interface, I’d choose Deco Mailer. Sleek, more simplistic than the others… I like cute stuff, but the other apps just look very 90s graphics -_-
90’s graphics!! Well yea, they’re very pixel sprites type for sure
oh I’ve been looking for some cute app myself too.
i wonder, do these work on text messages too or is it email only?
Email only And also only gmail.com or softbank email addresses.
i may need to start dropping/breaking/sabotaging my current phone….. just so i’ll have an excuse to get an iphone…
die, nokia!
Hahahah, that’s how I was treating my blackberry hahaha (and it listened, yikes!)
need an itouch soon!! im still paying off my current phone so no iphone for me T_T