gmail notifier that works in Ubuntu 12.04 64bit

[Oldhacker]

As it stands now, in order to check my Gmail (which I use as my primary email account,) I have to open up Firefox, then click the Google search bar, then click Gmail - all too often find out that I have NO incoming email.

The Ubuntu software center has an app that had very poor user evaluations. After installing it and seeing it fail to function, I understand why.

Is there anything available that will give me a visual indicator on the desktop when there is something new in my Gmail inbox?

[3Miro]

Under Chrome/Chromium, there is an extension that will give you a gmail indicator in your browser. This was the primary way for me to keep track of my mail, any time I am on-line I will be aware if I have new gmail messages.

Not I use Thunderbird, I let it run minimized in the Unity dash and it lets me know with a message popup whenever I have new mail. I also get the +1 indicator on the Thunderbird icon.

Firefox is messing with me right now, but you can check for a Gmail addon for Firefox, since this is the browser that you seem to be using.

[Rodney9]

I use GMail Watcher in Firefox, it blinks, plays a sound and counts how many new emails.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/fir...gmail-watcher/

Rodney

[markbl]

IMHO, the best gmail notifier for Ubuntu Unity is gm-notify. It is in the standard packages. AFAIK, it is the only notifier which notifies immediately. All other notifiers work by poll only.

[Oldhacker]

Thanks to all who have responded to my query.
Gm-notify sounded like what I was looking for, inasmuch as the other choices operated from within a browser and wouldn't be of use if I were not in a browser and working on a Document, Spreadsheet, Graphic or such.

I installed with "sudo apt-get install gm-notify"
and did not receive any error messages. However, since installing gm-notify yesterday, I have received a dozen e-mails and no indicator ever showed up on my desktop. It is a "puzzelment" (as was phrased in The King and I.)

[3Miro]

You probably need to start gm-notify, try running it form the Unity menu. You may have to add it to the startup programs via the computer icon in the top-right -> startup applications.

[hakermania]

Hello Oldhacker, I have a very simply and light solution for you!

That's a working script:

#!/bin/bash

check_emails(){
count=0;

#FIRST ACCOUNT
gmail_login="FISRT_ACCOUNT_HERE@gmail.com"
gmail_password="FIRST_PASSWORD_HERE" 
count=$(wget -q -O - https://mail.google.com/a/gmail.com/feed/atom --http-user=${gmail_login} --http-password=${gmail_password} --no-check-certificate | grep fullcount | sed 's/<[^0-9]*>//g')

if [ $count -gt 0 ]; then
   notify-send "GMAIL" "$gmail_login - $count new emails"
fi

#SECOND ACCOUNT
gmail_login="SECOND_ACCOUNT_HERE@gmail.com"
gmail_password="SECOND_PASSWORD_HERE" 
count=$(wget -q -O - https://mail.google.com/a/gmail.com/feed/atom --http-user=${gmail_login} --http-password=${gmail_password} --no-check-certificate | grep fullcount | sed 's/<[^0-9]*>//g')

if [ $count -gt 0 ]; then
   notify-send "GMAIL" "$gmail_login - $count new emails"
fi
}

#PROGRAM STARTS HERE
#timeout in case you have selected starting the script in startup
sleep 5 #set your own timeout if you want
while true; do
   check_emails #run the function
   sleep 15m #timeout to wait between each check
done

You should change the words in capital and everything after the 'sleep' commands, it is the timeout.

You can repeat the same thing in the function check_emails for any gmail accounts you want to.

EDIT: forgot to add that you have to install the package that contains the command notify-send, I think it is libnotify-bin or similar.
Also, you can place the script in your startup applications!

[markbl]

I installed with "sudo apt-get install gm-notify"
and did not receive any error messages. However, since installing gm-notify yesterday, I have received a dozen e-mails and no indicator ever showed up on my desktop.

Sorry if this is a stupid question but you did configure it didn't you? Run gm-notify-config from dash etc. It needs to know your google account details.

[Oldhacker]

Not a stupid question at all. I have made many stupid errors that should have been obvious, but not configuring this was not one of them.

As it stands now, I can bring up gm-notify from the command line, but it only remains visiblefor a few seconds. Tomorrow, I plan on trying to figure out how to put it in my start-up applications and see if it can function without command line input.

If that does not work, I'll try the script that another Ubuntuist kindly posted. This Ubuntu group sets a shining example of how people can and should help one another.

[markbl]

Tomorrow, I plan on trying to figure out how to put it in my start-up applications

You ask the above question but did you not see the checkbox item "Start automatically on logon" in the gm-notify-config app I referred above?