Gmail Accoutrements

After using Gmail for a few days I can really see the need for some type of taskbar notifier to let me know when I’ve got new mail.

There’s one available here, but it seems like it could use one or two more upgrade cycles and some more options relating to a user’s choice of browser.

Adrian Holovaty has created a basic python interface, and there’s a program here (also in python) which lets you load email from Mozilla or Netscape.

And of course there’s Pop Goes the GMail, which downloads your Gmail email to a pop account, and therefore seems to be utterly pointless.

Update: G-Mailto is a windows reg hack that lets you make Gmail the default program for creating new emails, taking you directly to the compose screen when you click on an email link.

The one thing I wonder about with all of these tools is whether the development or use of them will be taken as a violation of the gmail terms of use, which is pretty clear in forbidding robots or spiders which monitor or copy content from the service.

What would be ideal of course would be a google-sanctioned API or RPC for checking whether or not you’ve got new messages.
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