Receive Gmail Notifications in Windows 7 with Gmail Notifier Plus

If you’re like a lot of computer users, you know that it can be a bit frustrating when waiting for an important email to arrive. You want to keep a browser window or tab open, so you’ll see the new message immediately when it arrives. Still, it’s happened to me that I accidentally closed the tab (when trying to quit another website), so didn’t realize that my email tab was also closed. The mail arrived, but I wasn’t aware, and so the whole reason for the tab being open in the first place was negated. This is also true after installing an email notifier that lives in your web browser’s toolbar. When the browser is closed, the extension is worthless.

Windows users, on the other hand, can install Gmail Notifer Plus, a handy utility that lives in your Windows taskbar and checks for new Gmail messages in your account (or accounts, as multiple accounts are supported). You get a nice icon with a badge representing the number of unread emails in your inbox, plus handy jumplists that let you access your inbox, check for new messages or even create a new message, just with a click or two.

Plus, Gmail Notifer Plus offers message previews when you hover over its icon. If you have multiple messages, you can use the forward and backward arrows to move quickly through your messages, seeing who the message is from, its subject and even a few lines of the message. All of this is without even opening your browser. You can’t delete or archive messages from the taskbar, nor can you initiate a reply, but for checking for new messages, and then seeing if they’re important enough to leave whatever you’re currently doing, it’s pretty fantastic.

Another nice thing about Gmail Notifier Plus is that it doesn’t need installation. Just double-click it, and it’s up and running. All you need to do is enter your Gmail account information (email address and password), configure how long it waits between checking for new messages (1 minute by default, but you can set that to longer if you want), and what sound is played when a new message arrives (it comes with a default sound, but you can configure it for your own sound, or no sounds at all).

About the only thing I feel is missing from Gmail Notifer Plus is the ability to go to your inbox with a single click. Other email notifiers I’ve looked at in the past would have an action (usually configurable by the user) for what to do when the icon is clicked. Usually the action was to either open the default email client, go to Gmail in a web browser, or check for new messages. Gmail Notifier Plus doesn’t really seem to do anything. If you’ve pinned it to your taskbar so the icon is always visible, clicking on it starts the program, but once running, clicking does nothing.

Still, for what it does (and how small it is and its relatively small memory usage), Gmail Notifer Plus is pretty nice. It might not offer every feature I’d want in an ideal email notifier, but it’s well worth a look if you just can’t bear missing out on a new, important email.


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