mail.app status in menu bar?

You must keep your Dock hidden, since the Mail icon in the Dock shows the unread count.

I use Growl for the same purpose, with the included GrowlMail plugin. Instead of a menubar notification, I get a small popup in the top right corner of my screen, with a preview of the message. It fades away after a few seconds, so it doesn't get in the way, but it alerts me to new messages. EDIT: You can click on it to go directly to the message, btw, since that was something you wanted. I also keep the Dock showing, though, so if I miss the message for some reason I still have that to alert me to new messages.

jW

 

I use a freeware app called Mail Unread Menu that both tells you when you have unread mail and gives you a way to pull Mail to the front to read it.

 

Me too, but there was a thread on this the other day in this forum and it was stated that it doesn't work in Lion (I don't know since I'm still using Snow Leopard).

 

Yeah that app doesn't work in Lion thus far.

 

I'm running Lion and it seems to work fine. I can't remember when it was last updated. Maybe you should check their site.

 

I keep the dock exposed on the left side of the screen to show an unread count and also use Herald to show a popup when a new mail comes in.

 

Hmm. Thats weird. I'll give it another try.

 

This is what I get when trying to install Mail Unread Mac