Gmail Desktop Notifier

Accessing the Gmail account only from the web browser is not quite the best way to keep up with your messages. A simple notification system should solve the problem and this is exactly what Gmail Desktop Notifier attempts to deliver.

There is no proper interface for this application, unless you count the system tray icon that shows the number of new messages in inbox and the time of their arrival.

The configuration panel is nothing complicated as there is a very small number of options available and all of them are easy to understand.

Setting up the behavior of the application does not require too much time because there are little tweaks you can do.

For the application to work it has to be connected to your Gmail account so that it can check periodically for new messages. As such, punch in the email address and the password for the account.

Gmail Desktop Notifier uses a secure connection to reach your inbox, so there is little worry that your credentials can be snatched in transit by unknown individuals because the entire data is encrypted locally.

There is the possibility to instruct the application not to save the credentials, but then you have to provide them each time.

Additional settings include defining the mail checking interval, which can be as low as one minute and pausing the verification of the account if the screensaver is active; this option makes sense because an active screensaver generally means there is no one in front of the computer and alerts go unnoticed.

Gmail Desktop Notifier is simple and quite useful, despite the fact that that Gmail's settings includes desktop notifications. The difference between the two is that the third party works regardless of the browser you open the inbox in and it does not require to have Gmail open.