The Bottom Line
Pros
- GmailStatus announces new mail in a Gmail account in the Mac OS X menu bar
- Supporting Gmail labels, GmailStatus lets you know which category has unread messages
- You can set up a keyboard shortcut to your Gmail Inbox in GmailStatus
Cons
- GmailStatus does not display any message information (such as the sender)
- Only Gmail accounts are supported by GmailStatus
- GmailStatus could use prettier graphic design
Description
- GmailStatus checks a Gmail account for new mail periodically.
- The number of unread messages is displayed in a GmailStatus icon in the OS X menu bar.
- Messages in Gmail's "Spam" category are not counted by GmailStatus.
- New mail is broken down by label in GmailStatus.
- GmailStatus can display a short "new mail" message via Growl.
- You can open your Gmail Inbox and any label directly from GmailStatus.
- GmailStatus supports Mac OS X 10.3/4/5.
Guide Review - GmailStatus 1.1 - Gmail Mail Checker
GmailStatus counts even farther (or narrower?) by breaking the number of new messages down by label — very helpful if you have filters assigning labels or have manually marked a labeled message unread.
It's a pity that GmailStatus does not show any more information about the newly arrived messages, however. Knowing who the mail is from any what subject it has would be nice. And, talking of nicety, with all its plain usefulness, GmailStatus could be a neater thing to look at in the menu bar. If you use Growl, you can have it announce new mail reported by GmailStatus beautifully.
Of course, you can go directly to your Gmail "Inbox" (or any other label) from GmailStatus or start a new message. Alternatively, a system-wide keyboard shortcut takes you to Gmail even faster, and GmailStatus can set Gmail as the default "application" for writing emails.
