Linux Email Notification

Email Notification

Mailnag is a daemon program that checks POP3 and IMAP servers for new mail. On mail arrival it performs various actions provided by plugins.

# apt install mailnag

In case of using OpenBox as a windows manager and tint2 as a panel, after the installation of mailnag and configuration of email account, by default, only a pop-up window appearing just for few seconds and sound alert will notify you on getting new email, no permanent notification in the system tray will remind you that you have the new mails. To have the alert in system tray some additional efforts are needed.

1. Install yad. It will allow you to add notification icon into system tray using a shell script.

# apt install yad

2. Create a script $HOME/scripts/mailnag-tray

#!/bin/bash

mail_meta='$quantity $account $sender $header'
quantity=$1
account=$2
sender=$3
header=$4

yad --notification \
    --text="$account has $quantity new mail - From: $sender - Regarding: $header" \
    --image=mail-unread \
    --menu="Sylpheed! sylpheed"

3. Start mailnag-config, click on "Plugins" and switch "User Script" on.

4. Add to ~/.config/mailnag/mailnag.cfg

[userscriptplugin]
script_file = /home/your-user-name/scripts/mailnag-tray

That is all.

On new mails your will get a mail-unread icon in the notification area of tint2 panel. On mouse hover icon you will get the information which account has got mail, name of sender and mail subject. The mouse right-click: let you open the email client (sylpheed). The mouse left-click removes the notification from the panel.

seahorse can be used to check the passwords for the email accounts in mailnag.