[cincinnatus]

"Real-time email notifications considered harmful"

Seriously, if your daily activities require actual thought, turn all that shit off. If you need to know when a critical email shows up from time to time or from specific people, find a tool that does that or wire one together yourself with IFTTT and a push notification service. Your flow will thank you.

[zippergz]

For me it's not about getting real time notifications, but about being able to quickly see if I have any messages without having to keep a gmail browser window open all the time. I actually find that I spend LESS time looking at email when I have Notifier running, because I'm not compelled to keep looking at a full Gmail window to see if I have anything. I can easily ignore it most of the time, and when I do want to see if I have anything, I can see it in a half second glance.

[ashchan]

Gmail Notifr allows one to set a larger check interval than 'real-time'. As the author of the app, I set my accounts to check every 120 min (work) and 240 min (personal).

[cincinnatus]

That is a start, but any interruption at any time can be disruptive, and email is a particular problem.

What would be handy in a tool like this is being able to set up what I described above; normally don't ever notify me, but allow me to turn on real-time notifications for particular people on demand, or other rules for knowing when it makes sense to interrupt.