Okay, I know it sounds like moronic question -- but seriously, it seems like the only way to be notified of new mail is to always leave Evolution open which takes up valuable space in my window list and then tell Evolution to use a sound to notify me. But what if I'm listening to Rythmbox at the time? Then no sound plays and I'm not notified. Isn't there any way to leave Evolution open in the system notification area only and display a number for new messages (similar to kmail)?

I know Gnome has an inbox monitor applet that I could use -- and that would be great if it could monitor more than one inbox (duh!).

I tried GKrellm too, but then I have to make sure I never ever cover up that part of my desktop or won't see that the number has increased -- useless!

I really like Gnome -- but if I can't get reliable notification of incoming mail, I think I'll have to go back to KDE :-(

Isn't incoming mail *precisely* the kind of think the system notification area is for? Any solutions?

-- Frustrated in Gnome-land

Easy, just put more than one inbox monitor on the panel.

Each one has it's own settings.

I appreciate the tip. But since I have 8 mail accounts, isn't that an awful lot of screen real estate to have 8 inbox monitors across the bottom? Am I missing something or does everyone who uses Evolution just accept the fact that you have open Evolution and look everytime you want to check for new mail?

I used Evolution for a little while and that was how I did it - I just dedicated one virtual desktop to it.

Now I have an inbox monitor in my panel, so it's almost always visible, but I only have one remote inbox where all of my email goes.

I do have several incoming IMAP folders on that same server, but I only care to see notifications in my primary inbox.

I'd say hacking the panel applet to display several inboxes is one easy solution, and I'm sure there's probably an applet that already does this, it's just not the distributed with Gnome. Google is your friend

A better solution though might be to channel all your email into one account: just have one inbox for person-to-person email and monitor that one.

I hate to be a sourpuss -- and maybe I'm just a spoiled ex-Mac user -- but am I the only one who thinks this is totally freakin' retarded?

I mean seriously! For all the talk about "desktop usability" -- isn't the concept of "You've got mail" a pretty basic and fundamental requirement of any modern desktop?! Sometimes I'm really shocked at how such simple obvious needs get overlooked. Grrrr... (rant rant), looks like I now have a choice between never knowing if I have new mail OR going back to the insane bloat and user-hostile clutter of KDE. Tough choice... :-(

The concept of "you've got mail" is quite basic, and Gnome meets this need very well with the standard panel applet.

The concept of "you have mail in some but not all of your 8 different email accounts" isn't something I would call a "simple obvious need".

Most people only have one or two real email inboxes, and either forward or fetch all other mail into that box.

What kind of interface would you like to see for your 8 inboxes?
I'm sure it's possible to do something without going back to KDE (which I must agree is a cluttered and horribly messy interface)

This is something that I would find useful too.

An inbox monitor that would change colour or flash when there was new mail in any of my five accounts (yes, I need five, they are from different web sites, and I find it very useful to keep them apart and to reply from the same account that the mail was sent to), and possibly, when hovered over, would show a tooltip saying how many mails in each account would be great!

Incidentally, I haven't been able to get the Gnome panel inbox monitor to use cram-md5, so it can't connect to my IMAP server. If there's a better inbox applet out there I'd like to hear about it, otherwise maybe I'll find the time to hack the existing one a bit and add some of these features.

Actually, you might want to think about using fetchmail. Tell fetchmail to grab mail from all the accounts you're interested in, and save it to your mbox (e.g. /var/spool/mail/username). After you've done this, tell whatever mail monitor program you use to only check your mbox. After you're done reading mail in your mbox, either leave it there or move it to your home directory (which is what I do).

I don't use Evolution; I use mutt along with a WindowMaker Dock program that watches my mbox and shows me the number of new mails and the total number of mails. When I move (i.e. copy and delete) messages out of my mbox, the "total" count goes down. This is helpful in that not only can I archive my mails, but I can leave important/pressing/to-do emails in my mbox until I've completed whatever task they represent. It's great!

Mutt is nice, but its IMAP support needs a little work though.

My current setup has fetchmail running on the server, and uses maildrop to filter all incoming mail into various IMAP folders. (One main one and a few dozen others for mailing lists.)

My panel applet is pointed at my primary inbox, which is the only one I care to be notified of.

I use Mutt for sending mail (since I can't stand writing text without vim) and for mail processing tasks, and my primary interface for reading mail is squirrelmail.

I agree with webvandals - why wouldn't someone write such a simple applet for such a simple need. I don't have 8 e-mail accounts - just a few - but still think that Ximian could have done a MUCH BETTER JOB making Evolution to be more "You've got mail"-informative. The playing a sound option when a new mail arrives doesn't work in my Evolution 1.5, and there is almost nothing for KDE desktop that would help me to be notified about incoming mail.

There is EVOBIFF though ( http://evolutionbiff.sourceforge.net/ ); it is a Superkaramba applet. But I could make it to work. As for now, I use GkrellM plugin that plays a sound when a new mail arrives.

It's not the responsibility of the email client to tell you when you have mail, it's the responsibility of your desktop environment.

Yeah... it is sort of like going to the post office every day to see if you have any new mail arrived (and get some if it did). :-)