I’d love to work in Apple Mail all day, but sometimes I need to take a break for word-processing, web browsing or blogging. Mail Appetizer is for those moments. Other notification add-ons (like MailUnreadStatusBar) will tell you discreetly in the menubar how many emails are waiting for you. Mail Appetizer takes a bolder approach. Whenever Apple Mail is not the active app, it brings your email to you in a splash screen as it arrives. Here is an example:
This plug-in installs itself in the the Preferences pane of Apple Mail. You can configure the mailboxes that it watches, the fonts it uses, the level of transparency in the notification window, and so on. The splash window itself can be re-sized, and contains four little icons at the bottom enabling you to view the message in Mail, mark it as read, delete it or dismiss the window.
Some people say that productivity is enhanced by limiting the number of times that you check your email. Once every hour, or every thirty minutes, they say. This plug-in won’t help you achieve that!
It is free (donations welcome!) and you can download it from the Bronson Beta web site.
Tags:
add-ons,
addon,
alerts,
Apple Mail,
mail.app,
mailappetizer,
notification,
plug-in,
plugin,
Productivity,
smoked glass
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on Thursday, 11th August, 2005 at 4:48 pm and is filed under Apple Mail, Apple Mail Plug-ins.
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September 3rd, 2005 at 10:25 am
I think that Mail.Appetizer doesn’t work with Mail 2.x. At least, it was disabled when I upgraded to Tiger. A bummer, too - I liked it a lot. I use Growl now for email notifications, but MA was better and had more features, and grouped them all in one notification window.
September 3rd, 2005 at 10:26 am
I take it back - looks like the latest is Tiger-compatible!
September 4th, 2005 at 9:36 pm
It’s working a treat for me, so that’s good to hear!
September 15th, 2005 at 12:26 am
[...] Growl+Gmail is an addition to GMail Notifier, which works with Growl to provide “flash-up notifications” on your screen as mail arrives for you in your GMail account. Rather like Mail Appetizer does for Apple Mail. [...]
September 30th, 2005 at 10:07 pm
[...] Not everyone wants their email in their face all the time, which can happen with MailAppetizer. MailUnreadStatusBar is a notification utility that takes a more low key approach. Your email is just a click away but it’s not flashed up automatically to disrupt your work flow. [...]
October 30th, 2005 at 8:03 am
[...] So many notification options exists for Apple Mail — “loud” ones like iAlert or MailAppetizer, discreet ones like MailUnreadStatusBar, spoken ones like the Announce Mail or Spoken Sender Applescripts — that it is possible to overlook Mail’s built-in notification features. [...]
November 5th, 2005 at 9:51 am
[...] On the notification “volume scale” I place it half-way between discreet utilities like MailUnreadStatusBar and louder options like MailAppetizer, which splashes the lot, text of the message and all, in front of you. [...]
December 21st, 2005 at 10:13 am
[...] MailAppetizer. Beautiful and useful “in your face” notification. [...]
January 2nd, 2006 at 9:56 am
[...] Personally, I can’t see the point of this. It’s a cold day in Hell when Mail.app isn’t already running on my Mac and utilities like MailAppetizer and MailUnreadStatusBar provide more efficient notification, but widget nuts will love it. [...]
January 8th, 2006 at 10:26 am
[...] Growl is a utility that provides notifications, or on-screen messages , when events occur in other apps. It can also provide pop-up notification (à la MailAppetizer) for Mail.app (and a growing number of other apps). [...]
October 29th, 2006 at 9:04 am
[...] Like Mail Unread Menu, MailUnreadStatusBar takes a low-key approach to notifications. Rather than popping up an alert screen as Mail.appetizer and GrowlMail do, it just keeps score in the Menubar, so that you can see how many unread emails you have without getting unduly distracted. [...]
November 20th, 2006 at 7:19 pm
[...] Mail Appetizer - Notification for those who can’t wait [...]
November 7th, 2007 at 10:25 am
Hi, is there a plug-in update for 10.5?
November 7th, 2007 at 10:38 am
Bakari — not yet, but see this:
http://www.hawkwings.net/2007/10/30/leopards-mails-mailapp-and-plugins-trial-and-error/
April 1st, 2008 at 11:07 am
Got an email from the developer telling me that a new Leopard compatible beta is now available. After getting through the ensuing tears of joy, I downloaded, installed, and then came here to share the good news.
Mail.appetizer 1.3 Beta 1:
http://www.bronsonbeta.com/mailappetizer/beta/
Cheers!
James
April 27th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Leopard compatible version now available from the Bronson Beta website.