Gmail Introduces Desktop Notifications for Email and Chat

Jan 27th, 20112 Comments

Wouldn’t it be great to receive notifications of new email without constantly having to switch back and forth between your email tab and your other tabs? Gmail has just introduced desktop notifications which brings IM-client like mail and chat notifications to the browser.

These HTML5 notifications are currently only supported by Google Chrome and popup whenever a new email or chat message comes in.

To activate this new feature, simply visit Gmail Settings > General and find options for Desktop Notifications. You can choose to have notifications show for all new email or just those marked important by Priority Inbox.

Gmail Desktop Notifications Settings

Enable Gmail Desktop Notifications

Then, Chrome will ask you whether or not to allow mail.google.com to show Desktop Notifications.

Gmail Notifications Message

Gmail needs permission to show desktop notifications

After clicking Allow and enabling the New Mail Notifications from the Settings, you will being receiving notifications whenever new email or chat messages arrive.

New Mail

New Mail Notification

New Chat

New Chat Notifications

What do you think of this new feature? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Desktop notifications for emails and chat messages [via Gmail Blog]

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Brian is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of TechAirlines. He is also a developer and manages most of the site’s operations. He enjoys web development in his free time and is currently trying to learn Python. He is currently a high school senior in New York City.

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  • http://www.nzeldes.com Nathan Zeldes

    Actually, this is a dangerous feature IMHO. It exacerbates the severe problem of interruptions and distractions that is a major component of Information Overload.

    The most basic rule of combating email overload is to only check email in one or a few time slots in the day, rather than each time a message arrives. With people receiving tens to hundreds of emails a day, receiving a pop-up for each one in real time is a disaster to our ability to focus and think straight. What’s more, the research shows that even if you ignore such pop-up alerts, they impact your thinking ability.

    That said, the ability to restrict the notifications to “important” messages would help, if applied correctly; but even then it may cause more harm than good.

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    very nice great.

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