Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on April 10, 2007 by CyberNet.

Time Saving Tuesday

I’m not sure about you, but I have several different Gmail accounts that I am constantly trying to keep track of. I’ve actually got 4 different personal Gmail accounts as well as the ones that I have Gmail manage for our website (using the Google Apps for your Domain). There are just too many email addresses for me to check on a regular basis, and the Google Talk client only lets you monitor the email address that your signed in with.

I looked all over for a good (and free) email notifier that I could use with multiple Gmail accounts, but there really aren’t many out there. There is an extension for Firefox called Gmail Manager that is supposed to monitor multiple accounts (including Google Apps), but I have experienced problems before with it where it constantly signs me out of one account and into another. Not only that, but I don’t want to bog down my browser with constantly checking 7 or 8 email accounts every few minutes.

Then it clicked! I’m constantly monitoring feeds using FeedDemon and so I’ll just have it monitor my email accounts as well. That way I can set it up to popup with a desktop alert anytime a new email comes into my Gmail account, and I never have to worry about a limitation on the number of accounts to check. Here is what FeedDemon’s notifier looks like:

It is important to note that FeedDemon is not free, but I use it because I believe it is the best feed reader available and is worth the $30. There are plenty of other feed readers out there though that have similar notifications without costing you a penny.

To gain access to your Gmail accounts feed there are two different types of URL’s that should work. The first URL is:

http://mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom

This URL will require that you sign-in to the Gmail service before it will give you access to the feed. If you’re using FeedDemon or another desktop feed reader it should prompt you to enter in the username and password for the account. Another URL that you can use looks something like this:

http://username:password@mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom

In that URL you’ll replace the “username” and “password” with your own account information. If you’re trying to use the Gmail feed with an online feed reader (such as Bloglines) this will probably be how you have to do it. Actually, Bloglines even has a notifier available so that you could receive the email alerts right on your desktop.

Don’t worry though…because there are a lot more ways to keep track of multiple Gmail accounts. If you don’t mind using some widgets/gadgets then you might find these to be good alternatives:

• Yahoo! Widget Engine has a few different widgets that will monitor your Gmail account for new emails.
• Windows Vista gadgets has a really great Gmail checker available. 

And then there are always the classic email management alternatives such as Thunderbird, Opera, Eudora, Outlook, and Windows Mail (a.k.a. Outlook Express).

Share your knowledge below by letting us know how you keep track of your email!

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