Gmail Notifier for Mac
Since I made the switch to Gmail as my primary e-mail tool I had settled into what I figured was a good model. I would leave Safari running Gmail up in a window and then have Mail running in another "Space", polling my e-mail through the IMAP interface.I liked this because Mail then kept all of my mail synchronized locally. If I unplugged for a bit and needed to grab a message, most of my mail was current and I could get to it. I still use Safari and the Gmail interface to create and generally read my messages though.
The problem is Google's implementation of IMAP apparently leaves much to be desired. What I found in Mail was that if I sent it from Mail a new label was created in Gmail called Sent Messages. I didn't really like that. In addition the Junk Email filter in Mail was getting false-positives on some of my e-mail, and a new label called Junk Email was created in my Gmail account; Mail would move what it considered junk into that label.
So, in the end it has become a little painful. Not too bad mind you, but enough to make me look around. What I really wanted was near instant notification of a new message arriving in my Gmail account.
I had already been using Gmail Notifier on my Windows XP machine and found it quite handy. Sure enough Google had a Mac version when I checked so I figured I'd give it a spin.
I won't go into too much detail talking about it because this little video does a great job walking you through it:
I've now put Mail on the back burner and am using this to keep track of not only my e-mails but also my upcoming calendar events. It's pretty cool.
Comments
- Going to Mail:Preferences
- Select Accounts
- Select your GMail Imap account
- Select the Mailbox Behaviors tab
- Uncheck all the "Store on server" options
You can also uncheck "Move Deleted Messages to the Trash Folder" if you want to use the default Gmail behavior to archive messages.
To actually delete a Gmail message from Mail.app, drag the mail item into the GMail trash folder.
http://lifehacker.com/software/gmail/a-better-way-to-set-up-gmail-imap-314565.php or
http://5thirtyone.com/archives/862 and another
http://lifehacker.com/software/gmail/a-better-way-to-set-up-gmail-imap-314565.php
@martin: I've heard a couple of people mention Growl. I'll check it out.
Mailplane - an app for Gmail. It sounds unncessary, but is very handy. Download the trial.
Disk Inventory X - great way to find where hard drive space has gone.
Remote Buddy - use the Apple Remote (you do have one, don't you?) for all apps.
App Fresh - quickly download app updates.
Google Earth - obvious, but not many people know there's a Mac version
VLC Player - video player for all formats
Hope this helps
Paul
Pual is also correct about disk inventory x.
Both are really good programs. I also like XCode which is free from Apple.
Not that it matters for Sent mail. Gmail will automatically create a message from anything sent through its SMTP server from you. But it works great for Trash and Junk.
So I updated, and sure enough, the new "Notifier" puts a red envelope on the menu bar (always red, not grey when there's no mail and red when there is mail), and it doesn't actually notify me when I have mail. Just a red envelope, pretty but completely useless.
Any ideas as to why the new "Notifier" will not notify?
AJ
always.sharp@gmail.com