Comparison

Documents vs Mail

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Documents

This app is a comprehensive file manager and document editor for mobile devices. It allows users to organize, edit, convert, and annotate various file types, including PDFs, Office documents, and audio/video files. It also features transcription, scanning, and cloud integration.

Highlights
  • Edit PDFs directly
  • Convert files to PDF
  • Organize files and folders
  • Transcribe audio and video
  • Scan documents
  • Play audio and video
  • Transfer files via Wi-Fi
Features
Read full description

Documents by Readdle is your file manager, document viewer, PDF editor, and archive extractor for iPhone and iPad. Browse and organize your files, extract ZIP and RAR archives, edit and sign PDFs, and convert or compress anything — all from one app. FILE MANAGER - Browse, organize, and manage local files and folders in one fast file browser, rename and color-tag them for quick access - Import files from your computer, download files directly from the web browser, or work with iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive, and other cloud drives without downloading them ZIP & RAR ARCHIVE EXTRACTOR - Unzip and extract ZIP and RAR archives directly on your iPhone or iPad - Create new ZIP archives to compress and share multiple files at once - Compress large files and folders to save storage space PDF EDITOR, VIEWER & CONVERTER - View and read PDFs, books, and scanned documents with a fast built-in viewer - Edit or modify existing text directly inside a PDF - Highlight, add notes, and place stickers on PDFs and books - Merge multiple PDFs into one, or split, rotate, and reorder pages - Convert PDF to Word, JPG, PNG, HEIC, and other formats SIGN DOCUMENTS - Add your signature to PDF contracts and forms in seconds - Fill out forms and place text, checkmarks, and initials anywhere on a document - Store signed contracts securely and access them from any device FILE CONVERTER & COMPRESSOR - Convert between PDF, DOCX, JPG, JPEG, PNG, HEIC, WEBP, and more in a few taps - Compress PDFs, photos, and files to reduce size for email or upload limits - Create PDFs from photos, scans, or documents, and convert them back to editable formats SCANNER - Scan receipts, books, and documents with a built-in OCR document scanner - Save scans as searchable PDFs directly in Documents or your cloud drive ALSO INSIDE - Transcribe audio and video to text, then edit or export the transcript - Use Smart Eraser to remove unwanted objects from photos - Play music and video, and transfer files to your Mac or PC over Wi-Fi Documents is an App Store Editors' Choice winner. Read more about our terms and conditions here: https://documents.io/legal/privacy https://documents.io/legal/terms

About

Mail

Consolidate all your email accounts into a single, organized inbox. Prioritize important messages, quickly respond with smart replies, and manage your inbox efficiently with features like scheduling and snoozing. Enjoy enhanced privacy with IP address hiding and read receipt prevention.

Highlights
  • Unified inbox for multiple accounts
  • Automatic message categorization
  • Priority Messages and summarization
  • Schedule send, snooze, and unsend emails
  • Smart Reply for quick responses
  • Mail Privacy Protection
Features
Read full description

Access, view and manage messages from all your email accounts in one place. Categorize your messages into easy to browse categories. Catch up on email easily with Apple Intelligence powered Priority Messages and summarizations. Manage your inbox by scheduling emails to send later, snoozing emails you want to get back to later and unsend an email in one tap. Features • Access email from iCloud, Gmail, Exchange, Yahoo, and Outlook as well as many other email providers - all in one place. • View all of your accounts in a single inbox, choose a specific mailbox or filter to see just Unread or Flagged messages. • Automatically organize your messages in to Primary, Transactions, Updates and Promotions categories and focus on the messages that matter most. • Stay on top of emails with Priority Messages, a new section at the top of your inbox that shows urgent emails. • Use Smart Reply to quickly respond to messages with a few taps. • Catch up on email quickly with summarization of messages and threads. • Find messages by sender, recipient or subject. Top hits make it easy to find what you’re looking for. • Manage your inbox by blocking a sender or muting notifications from an overly active thread. • Flag important contacts as VIPs to receive notifications when their emails arrive. • Triage email messages using swipe gestures that help you quickly archive, delete, flag, or mark messages as read or unread. • Use Mail Drop to send large attachments from any account through iCloud. • Hide your IP address with Mail Privacy Protection so senders can’t link it to your other online activity or determine your locations, and prevent senders from seeing if you’ve opened their email. • App Keywords (do not to exceed 70 characters): Mail, email, email app, productivity email, intelligent email

Screenshots

Documents4 screens
Mail3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is review sentiment: Documents at 71% against Mail's 34%. Documents also leads on update cadence (every 6 days vs every 11 months) and rating (4.8 vs 4.6). Mail's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 15) and ratings volume (4.4M vs 628K). On price and ads there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Documents sells 13 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per 7 days. Mail asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Documents holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.6. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Mail has 4.4M ratings behind it against 628K, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 71% of Documents's written reviews are positive against 34% of Mail's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Documents ships an update every 6 days, Mail every 11 months. Both last shipped on September 28, 2026.

Scorecard9 real differences · 2 level
Documents versus Mail: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterDocumentsMail
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.8 (628K ratings) — better4.6 (4.4M ratings)
Positive reviews71.0% of reviews — better33.9% of reviews
Number of ratings628K4.4M — better
Update frequencyEvery 6 days — betterEvery 11 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
Best chart rank#69 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch, Vision Pro — better
Requires iOS16.010.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size431 MB8 MB
Age rating17+4+
DeveloperReaddle Technologies LimitedApple

Customer experience

Documents

All ratings627,692 ratings
Positive95.2%
Neutral2.2%
Negative2.6%
Written reviews2,959 reviews
Positive71.0%
Neutral6.9%
Negative22.1%

Mail

All ratings4,444,576 ratings
Positive90.8%
Neutral2.7%
Negative6.5%
Written reviews8,358 reviews
Positive33.9%
Neutral8.1%
Negative58.0%

User reviews

Documents

From 628K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 💯 Excellent file management capabilities
  • 🚀 Seamless integration with cloud services
  • 📚 Versatile document viewer and editor
  • 🎵 Reliable offline music player
  • 👍 Intuitive and user-friendly interface

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Occasional crashes and bugs
  • 🔒 Concerns over in-app subscription model
  • 🔍 Inconsistent search and file management functionality
  • 🔋 High storage consumption
  • 🤔 Confusing changes in recent updates

Mail

From 4.4M App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Efficient email management
  • 🔒 Secure and private
  • 👍 Simple and intuitive interface
  • 💡 Useful categorization of emails

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Inconsistent swipe gestures
  • 🐛 Unreliable search function
  • 🐛 Emails disappearing or not syncing properly
  • 🐛 Slow email download and loading times
  • 🐛 Buggy performance after updates

Bugs and requests

Documents

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Disappearing downloaded files and folders
  • Unreliable audio playback with skipping and pausing
  • Inability to open certain file types after updates
  • Syncing issues between local storage and cloud services

Requested features

5 requests
  • Customizable volume controls for audio playback
  • Improved PDF annotation tools
  • Option to expand/collapse all bookmarks in documents
  • Ability to permanently delete files
  • Faster file transfer and syncing between devices

Mail

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Emails not downloading from server
  • Inconsistent behavior when deleting emails
  • Notifications not working as expected
  • Drafts and sent emails disappearing

Requested features

4 requests
  • Add snooze functionality
  • Improve email organization and filtering options
  • Provide more customization options
  • Integrate better with other Apple apps and services

In-app purchases

13 purchases

Documents

Subscriptions13
  • Documents Plus7 Days trial$4.997 Days
  • Documents Plus$9.991 Month
  • Documents Plus1 Month trial$9.991 Month
Show 10 more
  • Documents Plus7 Days trial$9.991 Month
  • Documents Plus3 Days trial$9.991 Month
  • Documents Plus7 Days trial$12.491 Month
  • Documents VPN3 Days trial$12.491 Month
  • Documents VPN7 Days trial$12.491 Month
  • Documents Plus7 Days trial$14.991 Month
  • Documents Plus3 Days trial$14.991 Month
  • Documents Plus7 Days trial$49.991 Year
  • Documents Plus7 Days trial$59.991 Year
  • Documents VPN7 Days trial$89.991 Year
None

Mail

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Documents free?
Documents is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Mail free?
Mail is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Documents or Mail?
Documents is rated higher. Documents averages 4.8 out of 5 from 628K ratings, while Mail averages 4.6 from 4.4M ratings.
Do Documents or Mail have ads?
Neither Documents nor Mail shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Documents or Mail?
Documents ships an update every 6 days, and Mail every 11 months. Most recently, Documents was updated on September 28, 2026 and Mail on September 28, 2026.

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