If you’re reading this then the chances are very high that you’re a Gmail user. Even if it’s not your primary source of email, we’re pretty confident in saying that you’re likely to have a Gmail email account up your sleeve. They’re free, after all. If you do take advantage of that Gmail account, and use Mail on a Mac, then you’re already probably aware that the two just don’t mix too well. That’s a real shame if you rely on Mail to notify you when a new email arrives.
Thankfully, one small Mac app can sort this whole mess out, and while it can’t make Mail play ball with your Gmail account, it can effectively replace the app entirely. Or, at least it can if all you really needed was notifications.
That’s because the app, called Aura and available from the Mac App Store, can sit quietly monitoring your Gmail account for new messages. When you get one, Aura notifies you and you’re free to then read the email in Gmail’s web app. If you’re a heavy user of things like labels, then the move to getting notifications from Aura but still using the Gmail web app is probably the best of both worlds. Aura lives in your menu bar too, so you’re always up to date on whether you have a new message or not. If you do, clicking the notification will launch the message in the Gmail web client.
Right now Aura is available to download from the Mac App Store and is free if all you need it to do is monitor one Gmail account. If, however, you need Aura to monitor more than one Gmail address then you’ll need to stump up $5 as an in-app purchase to unlock that particular feature. It’s not a lot to pay if you need it, but we expect most people will be able to make do with the free version of Aura anyway, so it’s probably a bit of a non-issue regardless.
(Download: Aura from the Mac App Store)
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