Gmail Notifier

A couple of emails came through the other day that I didn’t catch right away.  This set me on a quest for a good notification system for my email.  I need something where if I step away from my computer for 30 seconds that I can see that I got an email during that time.  Or, if I am working on something that I can’t stop, I need something that will quietly sit and remind me that something needs attention when I have a chance.

GMail Notifier

The first program that I installed was the GMail Notifier.  It can check for email and display a regular Notify OSD notification when one comes in.  What caught my attention was that it said “highly Ubuntu integrated”.

So, I used Software Center to install the gm-notify package.

Then, I opened Gmail Notifier Configuration from the menu.

On the configuration screen, I enter my email address and my password.

GMail Notifier Configuration

Then, I checked “Start automatically on logon”.

GMail Notifier Config Page 2

Notifications History

Now, what if I am away from my computer while the notification pops up?  To help with that, I found a “Recent Notifications” applet.

Here’s the commands to install it:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jconti/recent-notifications
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install indicator-notifications recent-notifications

Now, I can check to see what notifications were just displayed.  Here’s what the notification looks like using it with the GMail Notifier:

Recent Notifications Applet

New Google Chrome

While I was working through this, Google Chrome updated.  The new version added some notification icons that look promising:

New Chrome Notification Icons

When you click on the Chrome-Notifications item, it brings up the Notification Center.  Unfortunately, it always says that it is empty:

Chrome Notification Center

Conclusion

I still haven’t found the perfect solution.  I’ll have to keep working on it.  Do you have something that works for you?  Please comment!

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