GmailWatcher: A Gmail Notifier Especially Designed For Ubuntu

I've been wanting to post this since I've read about it on Mark Shuttleworth's blog but a few bugs delayed it.

GmailWatcher is an Gmail notifier especially designed for Ubuntu: it uses the Messaging Menu, NotifyOSD notifications and preferences sync through UbuntuOne.

GmailWatcher comes with all the features required for such an application:

• Google Apps support: you can use it to check your emails even if using Gmail with your custom domain
• Multiple accounts
• Labels: if you use lots of labels, you can set GmailWatcher to only notify you for new emails under certain labels only so that's covered by this application too!
• Secure password storing: your password is secure as GmailWatcher stores your password using Gnome-Keyring, but in the future it will support OAuth (yes, Google supports OAuth).

When you receive an email, a notification (via NotifyOSD) pops up in the top right corner (with an email excerpt) and the MeMenu icon turns green. Clicking the MeMenu, you can see the number of unread emails. Running GmailWatcher brings up a dialog where you can see more info on your unread emails:

Install GmailWatcher in Ubuntu (Lucid or Maverick)

Open a terminal and paste the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:loneowais/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gmailwatcher

Once installed, the first time you need to run it from Applications > Internet > GmailWatcher. Then you'll be able to access it via the MeMenu.

GmailWatcher has 2 themes installed by default but you can get more by going to Settings > Preferences and then clicking "Get more themes".

For more info, see Owais Lone's blog.