Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Menu Bar Mail Apps

Update.-- Mail Satellite has a new version (1.7.3) which is different than the previous (1.7.2) as the developers removed the option to open Apple Mail from the menu bar app. The new version will show you the mail (click on the individual unread mail) but now you have to go to the Mail application to open it. I reverted back to the previous version.

Original Post.-- I like menu bar mail apps. I've had them before the new Notification Center with OS-X Mavericks. I like to look up at the menu bar to see the if there is new mail and if so, how many e-mails. Nothing fancy, just something indicated new mail in the inbox.

Up until recently I've used Mail Unread Menu application, a cool little app by Logan Rockmore who makes a lot of cool apps. But he had to release a new update after every update of OS-X because the new OS-X version would disable the old Mail Unread Menu version.

Usually after about a week he would announced the update on his Website. Well, after OS-X 10.9.2 was released he hasn't released an update so Mail Unread Menu doesn't work along with some of his widgets. Ok, his choice and it is free stuff.

That said, there isn't a lot of small, unintrusive apps doing similar thing, just notify the user there's new mail and maybe how many, all in a small icon on the menu bar. I did manage to find Mail Satellite which also is free and is very similar.

I'm surprised Apple hasn't developed a menu bar icon tool. It would see so easy than clicking the notification center all the time, just an icon saying, "You have new mail." showing the number and with a dropdown display of them. Not rocket science.

But then maybe that's the point, it's not glitzy enough for Apple developers.  That's it, a simple thing. I wish Mr. Rockmore would release and update, it's the better app, but hey, that's life, and it's the Internet where there's always something for the same thing.

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