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Two new-mail notification apps for Linux
Do you sometimes find yourself desperately checking for new emails, afraid you're going to miss something important? Well, no more! All you need to do is to choose one of these extremely handy panel plug-ins!PopTray Minus
Lenik Terenin has re-written the original Windows utility PopTray to fill his needs for a suitable GNU/Linux mail notifier - hence the name: PopTray Minus. PopTray Minus is written in Python using PyQt4 GUI libraries which comes with most Linux distributions from the box. If you use Windows or Mac OS X your mileage may vary.
The tool itself is very lightweight, focusing on the most important feature: checking your inbox.
Mail Notification
Jean-Yves Lefort's application uses GnomeVFS to transparently support remote (SSH, HTTP, ...) and compressed mailboxes as well as advanced POP3 and IMAP features such as SSL/TLS connections (in-band or on separate port), SASL and APOP authentication, and the IMAP IDLE extension. As you can see Mail Notification supports a wide range of settings and functions.
Okay, which one do I use? With support for Gmail, Sylpheed, Windows Live Hotmail and Yahoo! plus the ability to use SSL, you should try Mail Notification first. While its user interface is purposely kept simple and straightforward, advanced users are provided ways to run commands in reaction to events, customize the pop up buttons, obtain an XML message list, modify the appearance of the application, and so on. PopTray Minus is truly lightweight: if you're not one of the anxious people checking your inbox every ten seconds and don't need dozens of option menus, go for it.
Comments
6
Subscribe to commentsmotangFeb 18th 2010 9:07AM
Been using Mail-notification for years now and it works very well.
TBFeb 18th 2010 9:36AM
Is there something like this for Windows? By which I mean it supports IMAP, IMAP IDLE, multiple folders (not just Inbox), and in the Windows tray (not a browser add-on), and free (or better yet, open-source)?
I've looked and came up with nothing. I miss FastCheck, but that's Fastmail only and now I'm on Google Apps.
Jens Vilhelm RotheFeb 18th 2010 2:42PM
Mail Notification for Ubuntu doesn't support SSL/TSL, and thus isn't very useful.
Oliver KomadinaFeb 18th 2010 2:56PM
Mail Notification does support SSL
--> 9.10: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/mail-notification-ssl/ppa/ubuntu karmic main
9.04: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/mail-notification-ssl/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
Jens Vilhelm RotheFeb 18th 2010 2:46PM
I'm running ubuntu, and list time I tried installing it, the SSL/TSL options were greyed out.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/mail-notification/+bug/44335
darwinsurvivorFeb 22nd 2010 8:36PM
I use gmail, so conky (imap script ftw) and googsystray are all I need. The benefit of googsystray is it can monitor gmail, calendar, wave, voice, reader and even send SMS.
However if you don't use gmail, the 2 above are probably your best bets (though the conky one does work for any imap account).