Mail alerts for when receiving a new message?

[redmeister]

hey, ok so i set up my gmail account for pop through Mail. everything works great, except the fact that i continually have to hit "get new mail" to receive my mail.

i want to be able to open Mail and leave it open throughout the day. While its open all day, i want it to show a visual alert or make a noise indicating i've got mail. for some reason, i have to go in and click "get new mail" everytime i want it to check.... i thought it should be able to just check automatically and receive mail when it comes? I did a "test" email from one of my other emails and it never showed up on its own, i had to manually check for mail.

i guess, being a old winblowz user, i want it to be like outlook in a sense that it will constantly check for mail and alert you when you get new mail in the dock or somewhere. i've tried fiddling around and nothing. any help or ideas? :confused:

thank you in advance

[swiftaw]

Under Preferences->General

You can tell it to check for new mail periodically, like every 1/5/10 minutes etc.

[robbieduncan]

Then install Growl and have that notify you when new mail arrives.

[dalvin200]

yup. install growl (http://growl.info/).. also useful for showing laerts from many other popular applications

[munkle]

Do what swiftaw said.

As an alternative to Growl, I like Mail.appetizer (http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/13900).

[redmeister]

thanks for the replies everybody... all of the suggestions i went ahead and implemented.. great stuff!

on growl though, how do i change the individual growl settings, i think i might have misinstalled it somehow or did something wrong bc growl isnt really doing anything yet. i'll play around some more and see if i can figure out how to configure it (still learning all the os x stuff haha... who thought installing would be so easy, its almost too easy. i try to make it more complicated than it is)

[robbieduncan]

Global Growl configuration for the style of alert and so on is done via the System Preferences using the Growl pane that should now be available.

To get it working you may need GrowlMail (http://growl.info/documentation/growlmail.php) as noted on the main Growl site under Applications!

[GITANAJAVA]

Also, if you'll cruise around Google's "new stuff" page, you'll find both a widget and an auto-checker/notifier. I installed it along with the Gmail, it's in my menu bar (widget is in W-bar), and when new mail arrives it floats a transparent window with a sneak preview of the header & body text. Plus, if you'd rather handle a particular piece of mail directly from your Gmail account, click on the menu bar icon & it takes you straight there, logged in & ready to shoot.