Set Up “Push” Gmail On Your iPhone
Despite iPhone 3.0’s push notifications and previously mentioned Google Sync’s contacts and calendars syncing chops, push Gmail still hasn’t come to the iPhone. But with the Prowl iPhone application, you can now push Gmail notifications—and then some—to your iPhone.
What Prowl Does
The $US3 Prowl iPhone application [iTunes App Store Link] works in conjunction with Growl, the universal notification application for Macs, to push desktop notifications to your iPhone. (The current release of Prowl in the App Store doesn’t yet support Growl for Windows, but the latest unreleased version already does—meaning Windows users should be able to do this once Prowl updates.)
How It Works
Whenever an application sends a notification to Growl, Growl sends that notification to Prowl’s servers, which in turn sends a push notification to your iPhone. So, for example, if you’ve got Growl set up to display new Gmail notifications (details below), Prowl can push those same notifications to your iPhone. The cool part about Prowl is that it doesn’t just work with Gmail—it works with anything that Growl does.
NOTE: What you’ll get after following these instructions isn’t true push email, but it’s a pretty solid approximation. In fact, in order for it to work consistently, you’ll need to have an always-on computer to push your Growl notifications to your iPhone. But until something better comes along, it’s a pretty strong alternative.
Set Up Prowl with Growl
If you haven’t already, go download and install Growl (it will install as a new preference pane in the System Preferences of your Mac).
Next, head over to the Prowl web site and register for an account (Prowl doesn’t even require an email address). Once registered, download the Prowl plug-in for Growl, unzip it, and double-click the Prowl.growlView file to install the Prowl plug-in to Growl.
Once you’ve done that, you’re ready to set up Prowl on your computer. Fire up the Growl preference pane (System Preference -> Growl), then click on the Display Options tab. Select Prowl in the Display Styles list on the left, then enter the Prowl username and password you registered with and click Verify to make sure Growl can properly talk to Prowl’s servers. (If everything’s copacetic, you’ll see a green checkmark next to the Password field.). If you want to use Prowl as the default for Growl (meaning you want the majority of your Growl notifications pushed to your iPhone), you can also set Prowl as the default from the Default Style drop-down.
When you set Prowl as your display notification type, you still get to choose what your Growl notifications will look like—you just do so through this Prowl display options menu. Make sure you’ve ticked the checkbox labelled Display notifications using style, then select the style you prefer (I’m a smoke person). You can also adjust what kind of Growl notifications Prowl will forward and when—for example, I’ve set Growl to only send notifications to Prowl when the priority is at least High, and I only send notifications when my computer has been idle for more than 5 minutes (presumably you don’t need push notifications if you’re already sitting at your computer).
If you’ve already downloaded Prowl to your iPhone (and choked on the $US3 price tag—yeah, we’re cheap) and logged into your Prowl account from your device, any new Growl notifications with Prowl set as the display type will push those notifications to your iPhone. Pretty cool, huh? That can potentially include anything from your IM client to your iTunes notifier and, yes, Gmail. Of course, Gmail requires a little more set up.
Set Up Gmail Notifier with Growl and Prowl
In order to get Gmail playing nice with Growl, you’ve got a few more steps to go. First, you need to download and install the Google Notifier for Mac—the official Gmail and Google Calendar notifier from Google. Next, download the Google+Growl plug-in for Google Notifier, unzip it, and install the Google+Growl Utility to your Applications folder. When you run it, this little utility keeps its eye on the Google Notifier and pushes any new email updates (and event alerts, if you wish) to Growl… which, if set up with Prowl, pushes the alert to your iPhone.
To make sure Google+Growl is set to work with Prowl, open up Growl one more time, click the Applications tab, and double-click on Google+Growl. Make sure Prowl is set as the default display style, then click the Notifications tab. On this tab, you’ll see a notifications drop-down with New Event and New Gmail selections. Make sure that both are set with Prowl as the display style. (If, like me, you’re setting Prowl only to push high priority Growl notifications, make sure you set the priority to High as well.
Keep in mind that you need to keep Google+Growl running in the background for the whole system to work, too. It all sounds fairly convoluted for something that should be so simple, but once you’ve got it set up, you shouldn’t have to do any fiddling after that
A year or so ago I was using a third-party background app (required jailbreak) called iMapIDLE that simulated push for Gmail, and while it looks like something similar is undergoing review for the App Store, the Prowl approach seems like another very solid one. It doesn’t require you to hand over any usernames or passwords to a third party, since the notifications are all coming from your computer, and it can work with all sorts of notifications that Growl already supports (imagine getting a notification that your BitTorrent client just finished downloading that movie while you’re picking up dinner, for example).
As I said above, Windows support for using Prowl in conjunction with Growl for Windows isn’t quite there, but it should be very soon, making this a pretty solid solution for rolling notifications for just about anything from your desktop—and that, we like very much.
Got something clever you’d like to use Prowl for aside from Gmail push notifications? Have another, better method you’re already using? Let’s hear it in the comments.
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Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
Im finding that Google notifier is far from instant. It seems it takes about 5-10 mins for the notifier to realise I have mail. Right now there are two unread test mails in my inbox that have been there for 5mins. The iPhones fetch will pick them up soon!
Anyone else experiences huge delays? My test messages from 40 minutes ago just arrived.
@Tony Bostony: That only syncs the contacts and calendar not mail. Unless you have a secret to share.
lunchmoney
@krkeegan: it's an interesting idea, but do you really want to hand over your login info to some random no-name company?
@andreipervychine: another vote for NuevaSync.com ...amazing service.
@krkeegan:
Yep I read that Techcrunch article too, here's hoping it get's approved......
How long do App Store approvals usually take?
mwahahaha
A better alternative, although not approved yet, appears to be GPush.
It eliminates most of the complaints listed here.
GPush Features:
$0.99
No need to keep your desktop on all the time - Gmail Monitoring is handled by developers web servers.
Sounds reasonable to me:
[www.techcrunch.com]
[www.nuevasync.com]
get Gmail / Google Contacts / Google calendar to sync push to your iphone for only 25$ a year. (Compared to 99$ of mobile me).
@Adam Pash: Gotcha Adam, thanks for the clarification.
@Michael Mantis: This also centralizes your push notifications, which is useful so that you can check only 1 source for updates rather than an IM client, Email account, and more sources.
While we should be able to get push notifications for our email, this works for some of us now, and has a few advantages.
david.j.quigley
@Lightsout565:
For Gmail I rather use Emoze, it's free.
Christian Hernandez
Palm Pre :P
Why is it that the Iphone is so good at doing some things, and horrible bad at others. this cant be impossible for the iphone! Just like texting which is included with other plans on other phones, and mms as well, yet the iphone apparently is inexplicably unable to master these relatively simple functions!!
Bradley P Street
@Andrew Chane: I was able to add make it work with geektool and it was working while my computer was asleep.
the script notifies me of new emails and unread google reader items (without any additional apps).
if you are interested email me at adsandcrap @ gmail.com (remove spaces)
ctferrarajr
NuevaSync.com does REAL push email (from Gmail or any IMAP) for $25. Also does push calendar and push contacts for free. Much better solution in my opinion.
@madjack1987: That is not the point. You shouldn't HAVE to.
Michael Mantis
I am NOT paying $3.00 for a feature that should already be active in 3.0. If it was $.99 I was concidering it since that was the first price that popped in my head when I read the headline, but NOT $3.00. Come one people. Stop being gready and leaching off the crippled phone =(
Michael Mantis
@Mike Cerm: That rule is less rigid than it used to be; there are alternative browsers, calendars, calculators, clocks, cameras, weather and stock apps, notebooks...
What change to Mail app would be needed? It accepts push from Yahoo! already.
Samu Wade
Just for your information I believe the excellent Nuevasync service is now pushing gmail along with gcalenders and gcontacts.
[nuevasync.blogspot.com]
It is not part of their free service although $25 a year doesnt sound too much for a true push solution for gmail.
All I do is set up my gmail on the iphones exchange client. m.google.com
Thing works flawlessly.
Tony Bostony
I'm just happy that the Hack Attack feature is back :)
@billc124: But if you had one left on anyway (webserver etc...) then this would work for you perfectly.
madjack1987
This won't work because Google Notifier only checks gmail when you are actively using your computer. IF you leave your computer idle it will stop checking, even if you use the AutocheckInterval hack.
The only way I could get this to give me consistent results was to use it with Mailplane - however Mailplane is quite an expensive wrapper for Gmail.
Adium also exhibited the not bothering to check issue after a while.
dunos
@SDreamer: The article is about Gmail, not Exchange email. Exchange, Yahoo, and MobileMe all support "push" functionality, but Gmail does not.
Oscar Feliciano
Got me all excited, thanks but no thanks.
Meetloaf13
It's a good idea, but even if I leave my mac on and a browser with gmail open, when my mac goes to sleep, prowl seems to stop working. The whole idea is to get these notifications when I'm away from my computer. The whole email interface and functionality is something that I miss from my blackberry... iphone still doesn't do email nearly as well.
Andrew Chane
@vinylkemist: Push works with Exchange and Mobile Me out of the box, but not with Gmail.
so you waste battery juice every 2 minutes checking to see if you have any new email?
JillFantazmoto
@Oscar Feliciano: I by no means know the inner workings of this, but I've got my iPhone mail hooked in to my work's Exchange Notification. If sitting at my desk I ofter here the ding on my iPhone's email notifier just as or before it pops up in Outlook. It comes in to my iPhone before it gets to Outlook webmail too. If that's not instant, I don't know what is.
Like I said, I don't how it works, but saying that it only checks 15/30/60 minutes is an incorrect statement.
Google and Apple seems to team up with lots of application and although Blackberry is push Gmail and Yahoo. Now Apple hes it.
Thank for this push Gmail on Apple
Meh, I use selective gmail push.
Just configure gmail to selectively forward important/urgent messages to a push mail account (Yahoo, MobileMe, or whatever). This effectively gives you push of only the messages that you want, instead of constantly interrupting you and draining your iPhone battery with all of the other nonessential messages that you get. Once notified, you go to your gmail account to read and reply (you put your gmail account into manual fetch mode only).
Voila, fewer interruptions, and less drain on your battery.
aj_robins
Just installed the latest Growl for Windows with built-in Prowl support, and it seemed much easier to set up than the Mac version described. Maybe it's just me.
Hesadanza
@[ashchan.com]
Oscar Feliciano
alright boys and girls. here is the my latest and greatest geektool script.
it works with prowl and growl and growl notify to display unread gmail items(without Mail.app or any other app) and unread Google reader items (without any other apps).
If you have just unread mail it will display a Prowl notification that you have unread mail and the number of unread messages. if you have unread reader items it will do the same. if you have both...it will combine the messages into a single prowl message for easy viewing. if you have neither then it does nothing thus eliminated many blank notifications.
it also adds a timestamp so you can know if you have addressed the items yet.
to get this to work is very simple. just follow the steps below.
1)intall growlnotify
2)set up prowl
3)set prowl as defualt for growl, but only for emergancy items.
4) intall this script into a geektool shell item.
##Gmail
gmail=$(/usr/local/bin/elinks -dump '[mail.google.com]' | awk '/Gmail/ {print "Emails : " $7}')
nomail="Emails : 0"
reader=$(/usr/local/bin/elinks -source 'www.google.com/reader/api/0/unread-count?all=true&output=json' | sed 's/":/\ /g;s/,/\ /g;s/max/\state/' | awk 'BEGIN {RS = "{"} ; /state/ {sum += $4}; END {print "Reader: " sum }')
noreader="Reader: 0"
date=$(date "+%a, %B %d "-" %l:%M %p")
if [ "$gmail" == "$nomail" ]
then
if [ "$reader" == "$noreader" ]
then
echo
else
/usr/local/bin/growlnotify -p Emergency -a finder -n Geektool --title $reader -m "$date"
fi
else
if [ "$reader" == "$noreader" ]
then
/usr/local/bin/growlnotify -p Emergency -a finder -n Geektool --title $gmail -m "$date "
else
/usr/local/bin/growlnotify -p Emergency -a finder -n Geektool --title $reader -m "$gmail - $date"
fi
fi
4)install elinks (for the fetching of unread gmail and reader items. after installing open it in terminal by typing elinks. then navigate to google.com and log in(so it can get your unread info)
5)Set it to an appropriate refresh rate and your ready to rock!
Questions, Comments, Concerns? email me at ctferrarajr @ gmail.com (remove spaces)
ctferrarajr
I really wish there were a way to schedule push notifications at certain times. I may want the ability for one app to wake me at 2am, but not another - stuff like that.
Ryan Scott
@wickemu: not currently
ctferrarajr
IS there any way to get Google Notifier to work with multiple email accounts?
wickemu
@SDreamer: It doesn't tell you instantly on the iPhone. Mail checks every 15/30/60 minutes, not instantly or in 2 minutes.
Oscar Feliciano
@KanSer: Sure you have.
Oscar Feliciano
Uh... well Mail tells me instantly when I get email, so I don't know where there isn't any push. Now if we're talking notifications, I can understand, why doesn't Mail have notifications? Pain in the butt to unlock and check if there's mail on the badge.
@Mike Cerm: It's a two-part problem. Both Google and Apple would need to cooperate to implement push onto the iPhone.
Oscar Feliciano
I set everything up and it works..
But I can't get Notifier to check my inbox automatically.. Which completely defeats the purpose.
Not to rain on your parade but I set up my GMail account POP3 style and it tells me within 120 seconds when I have an e-mail. Do you really need to know any faster and is it worth using retarded 3rd party software to get it?
KanSer
This works with Geektool too.
There are several elements you need.
1)Growl
2)Growlnotify - comes in growl.dmg
3)Geektool
4)Custom Shell Script
The idea is that geektool would run this shell script every so often (15 min?). The shell script would be written in a way that it would check for new Gmail messages, check for google reader unread items, and optionally the current weather(or anything else that can be done with geektool.
I have been able to figure all of this out thus far except for the fine tuning of the shell script as I am VERY new at it. All it basicly needs to do is run several commands, check the output(in case there are any 0's...who wants to know that they have no new messages?) and then display growl notifications with the growl notify command.
if anyone is interested in helping, or would like help setting up geektool with gmail, google reader, or weather contact me @ adsandcrap @ gmail . com (remove spaces)
ctferrarajr
@Webran61: Google isn't allowed to make a Gmail app for the iPhone, remember? Apple doesn't allow apps that compete directly with Apple's own apps. Even if they could, Google couldn't actually push the whole email, because they can't run in the background. Their solution would have to be the same as this, where a notification tells you that you have a new message, and then you open the mail app to pull it down.
So yeah, the solution is to wait for Apple to update their Mail app. Don't hold your breath, because it's been 2 years now and they still haven't made much progress with it.
I'm sorry, but leaving a computer running all the time just to get notifications is not worth the electricity. Call me when it does this for real and not with some kludgy workaround.
billc124
More than likely, push is just a special SMS to the phone which tells it to retrieve the email. This shouldn't be rocket science to implement. More than likely there is some intellectual property, patent, that is preventing greater adoption of this technique.
chelsel
So I can't use this on my iPod touch until Growl updates. It seems like Gmail would be able to integrate push into their iPhone app. Or better yet, Apple itself could integrate push into the native Mail app. Maybe in one of the OS 3.0 future updates...
Webran61
I tried it and removed the app. Not that it was not working but for me (again just for me) having to rely on my desktop PC for Push notifications is not true Push. Now if I could turn off the PC and still have it work, well.. then I would not need Prowl. Great concept however for those that love it!!
SirWabbit
@smilinggoat: You can clear your cookies in Settings>Safari>Clear Cookies
Prowl is fantastic! I particularly like the settings for only displaying messages if they're above a particular priority or idle time at the main machine. And if Growl for Windows properly supports it as Lightsout mentioned, I'll definitely set it up on my Windows torrent machine, as it's the only thing running 24/7 at my place.
Off topic question regarding LH and iPhone: the LH mobile site gives you the option to view the normal LH page. I clicked that and now whenever I browse to LH on my iPhone, I can't get the mobile page without going to m.lifehacker.com. Is there a way to reset my cookies or something to get it to default to the mobile version?
I tried Prowl with my Growl for Windows, GFW just updated today to support Prowl, and got mixed results.
[blog.growlforwindows.com]