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Is there any way to coax Gmail into pushing new-mail notifications into my Linux machine, without using a full-on graphical mail client like Thunderbird?
edit: Thanks for all the responses, but (unless I'm mistaken) these applications all poll, none of them receive notifications pushed from GMail.
Also, I'd prefer a console-based program, as this will be running on a headless server.
David Wolever
Posted 2009-11-30T22:03:33.847
Reputation: 1 999
4
There is a program called checkgmail
(http://checkgmail.sourceforge.net/)
that will sit in your gnome taskbar. I know there is a plasma widget for KDE
(http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php/gmail-plasmoid?content=101229)
that does something similar, although from what I've read, it might be a little broken.
The program Docky2 has a pretty good gmail notifier built in if you use a compositing window manager like compiz or metacity.
I don't know of any terminal based checkers if you don't have an X11 at all.
Katerberg
Posted 2009-11-30T22:03:33.847
Reputation: 745
The command line equivalent is 'biff' – DaveParillo – 2009-11-30T23:30:35.780
If you're using Ubuntu or another debian-based distro, checkgmail should be in your repository. – DaveParillo – 2009-11-30T23:34:17.940
Do all of this clients support push (instant) notifications? I've only found Thunderbird to have this capability. – alfplayer – 2009-11-30T23:48:38.630
As alfpayer said, all of these (including, as far as I can tell, checkgmail) are polling not push based. – David Wolever – 2009-12-01T01:06:40.843
Ah, good point. Sorry, I didn't catch that. – Katerberg – 2009-12-01T17:22:15.680
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Mail Notification supports Gmail. It can check multiple accounts simultaneously so you can also use it to notify you of new mail in Evolution, Thunderbird or IMAP and POP accounts.
jwaddell
Posted 2009-11-30T22:03:33.847
Reputation: 2 626
Ah, thanks – this one does support push notifications… But, alas (and this is my fault, I'm sorry) I didn't make it clear that I wanted an X11-free app. – David Wolever – 2009-12-01T01:18:09.603
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I know this question is quite old but it came up in my search and I thought I'd update. Evolution now supports IMAP+ or IMAPx which enables IMAP IDLE, and so gmail can push mail to it.
http://chenthill.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/evolution-with-improved-imap-support-imapx/
olan
Posted 2009-11-30T22:03:33.847
Reputation: 136
1
Is this any good?
NickG
Posted 2009-11-30T22:03:33.847
Reputation: 143
That does look nice, but unfortunately it uses polling, not server-push, too. – David Wolever – 2009-12-01T01:09:59.183
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Gmail doesn't push. You can receive an atom feed:
http://code.google.com/apis/gdata/faq.html#GmailAtomFeed
DanJ
Posted 2009-11-30T22:03:33.847
Reputation: 491
0
If you are on Ubuntu, try GmailWatcher;
ppa:loneowais/ppa
Owais Lone
Posted 2009-11-30T22:03:33.847
Reputation: 303
What is ppa:loneowais/ppa? – David Wolever – 2010-09-27T14:17:06.993
On Ubuntu you can add this to your list of software sources and you'll get automatic updates for all the apps present in this repository. – Owais Lone – 2010-09-28T13:48:44.647
4AFAIK Gmail doesn't push notifications at all, which means all notifiers must poll... but I may be unaware of some enterprise edition feature or other. – Yuval – 2009-12-01T06:52:24.780
1Instant notifications is possible using Gmail's free service (Thundebird is capable). I believe the enabling feature is IMAP IDLE. – alfplayer – 2009-12-01T20:28:49.533
Yuval: yea, alfplayer is right. Gmail does push notifications, both to IMAP and when you're in the web interface. – David Wolever – 2009-12-04T18:16:38.583