Hawk Wings has posted about Mark Lyon’s Gmail Loader before back in the days (last year) when it was a command-line utility.

Things have changed. Gmail Loader now has a graphical interface and is much more “user-friendly”.

As the rush to Gmail’s web interface continues, James E. Robinson III provides a timely walk-through using the current version to get the emails from his IMAP account into Gmail’s system.mail.app, gmail, email, messages, mailboxes, mbox, emlx, Gmail Loader, web interface, transferring

Gmail has announced that it is integrating its IM facility, Talk, into Gmail’s web-based interface.

Users can now see when their Talk buddies are online, save transcripts of their chats as if they were emails and initiate chats with one click, all from the browser interface.

The transition will occur “over the next few weeks” and according to MacWorld will be limited to users of the US English language interface.

Gmail has released an annotated screenshot of the new interface for those who are still waiting:

Click image for a larger copy

Of course, Mail.app users already enjoy integration with iChat and the ability to email themselves transcripts of their chats automatically using Chatalog, but many are welcoming this as “the next logical step in web-based mail” (so the Radioactive Yak ).Gmail, Talk, chat, ichat, web interface, Chatalog, Web 2.0, transcripts, IM, contacts

Gmailto No. 2 is a little app that allows you to set Gmail as your default email client in Mail.app, so that any email link you click opens a new email in Gmail’s web-based interface.

Download it, put it wherever you like and then open Apple Mail’s General Preferences. Select Gmailto (2) from the list like this and you’re all done:

As you can see from the screenshot, two Gmail notification utilities — GmailStatus and GmailNotifier — allow you to do the same thing, but if you don’t want to use either of them, this little app will get the job done.

It’s donation-ware and available from the developer’s web site .Gmail, default email client, mail.app, apple mail, mailto: links, notification, GmailStatus, GmailNotifier, email, web interface

Quicksilver promotes itself with the tag, “Everything is an Easter egg”. There’s a surprise behind every keystroke.

I was surprised a few months ago when I discovered how easy it is to email a file directly from the Quicksilver interface.

And, of course, it’s just as easy to select an Address Book contact and fire up an email message to them in Mail.app with a few Quicksilver keystrokes.

But other email clients and interfaces get good loving from Quicksilver too.

Quicksilver and Gmail

A new Quicksilver plugin for Gmail was released today.

Coelomic at WordWorks has produced an excellent tutorial for Gmailers who “would rather die than use Mail in OS X” on how to use the plugin.

Detailed and lavishly screenshotted, it shows you how to compose and address an email inside Quicksilver that will load into Gmail’s web interface.

Gmail and Thunderbird

Hawk Wings reader and prolific commenter, Ted Pavlic, posted the keystroke sequence to begin an email in Thunderbird from the Quicksilver interface. Let me save you the leg work:

Set Thunderbird as your default e-mail app, hit Control-Space, type in a name from your address book, tab over, type “Compose,” and Thunderbird will pop up in a compose window with that e-mail address.

The comma trick works too. Control-Space, name, comma, name, comma, name, comma, …, tab, compose, and Thunderbird will pop up an e-mail addressed to each of those address book entries.

Of course, this isn’t really “Thunderbird support” in Quicksilver.

Quicksilver can begin a message in any email client that you can set as the default in the General tab of Mail.app’s preferences. Even PowerMail.email, file, Quicksilver, Gmail, Thunderbird, plugin, web interface, mail.app, preferences