Mailnag Email Notifier Sees New Major Release, Is No Longer Just For GNOME Shell

Mailnag, an email notifier that was initially developed for GNOME Shell only, was updated to version 1.0 recently, getting numerous changes such as a plugin system for easy extensibility and also, the application is now desktop-independent.

The latest Mailnag 1.0 is no longer just for GNOME Shell. The new version comes with a set of desktop-independent plugins for displaying notifications / sounds on mail arrival. But that's not all. Because regular desktop notifications are only visible for a few seconds (well, in some desktop environments anyway), the application ships with plugins for GNOME Shell and Unity for tighter desktop integration.

The GNOME Shell plugin includes an indicator in the top panel which displays a counter badge and a popup menu, notifies about new emails via the messaging tray and it integrats with the lock screen:

The Mailnag Unity plugin integrates the application with Ubuntu's messaging menu, allowing you to open the mail reader, for a new mail check and displays the latest new emails (and of course, you also get new mail notifications - that's supported on all desktop environments):

Those are not the only changes in the latest Mailnag 1.0 though. Here's the complete list of changes:

• Mailnag is desktop-independent now (was GNOME3-only);
• Added plugin system to allow easy extensibility;
• Cut down the core daemon functionality to mail checking only and moved everything else to plugins;
• Added GNOME 3/Ubuntu Unity extension/plugin for a tighter desktop integration;
• Added account assistants for popular email providers like Gmail;
• Added DBUS service (for remote control/integration in other apps);
• Redesigned and simplified config UI;
• dded propper logging (log messages are sent to stdout and the system log now);
• Heavy code cleanup & refactoring;
• Reduced disk write access, other performance improvements;
• Fixes for various major and minor bugs;
• New icon by Reda Lazri;

Install Mailnag in Ubuntu

The latest Mailnag is already available in the official Debian unstable and Ubuntu 14.10 repositories, but without the new GNOME Shell and Unity plugins. For those, you'll need to use the PPA below.

Mailnag is available in a PPA for Ubuntu 14.04, 14.10 or 15.04. To add the PPA and install it, use the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:pulb/mailnag
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mailnag

Then, to install the Mailnag Unity plugin, use the command below:

sudo apt-get install mailnag-unity-plugin

Or, to install the GNOME Shell Mailnag extension, copy/paste the following command in a terminal:

sudo apt-get install gnome-shell-mailnag

GNOME Shell only: once installed, open GNOME Tweak Tool and enable the Mailnag extension.

Update (Ubuntu GNOME/GNOME Shell only): Mailnag (starting with version 1.1) now integrates with GNOME Online Accounts through a plugin - to install it, use the following command:

sudo apt-get install mailnag-goa-plugin

And finally, open the Mailnag Configuration from the Dash / Activities Overview / menu and set up your mail account(s), enable the plugins you want to use, etc.

For how to install Mailnag in other Linux distributions, report bugs, etc., see its GitHub page.