Email is arguably one of the most popular and useful functions of a Linux system. Fortunately, there is a wide selection of free email software available on the Linux platform which is stable, feature laden, and ideal for personal and business environments.
A mail notification tool lets you know when new emails are received. A prominent feature of these tools is the non-obtrusive passive notification about important emails which will let you concentrate on your work and avoid unnecessary interruptions.
When all you want to do is be notified when you have a new e-mail message the last thing you want is software chugging along in the background using up valuable system memory. Fortunately, the programs are lightweight in nature.
We make the following recommendations captured in a legendary LinuxLinks-style chart. All of the programs are free and open source goodness.
Hopefully, there will be something of interest for anyone that doesn’t want to miss an important email.
Even if you happy using your mobile phone to receive mail notifications, it’s handy to have notifications go to your desktop too.
Let’s explore the 8 mail notification tools at hand. Click the links in the table below to learn about each tool.
| Mail Notification | |
|---|---|
| Bubblemail | Extensible mail notification service. Fork of Mailnag |
| Mailutils | Swiss army knife of electronic mail handling |
| Ayatana Webmail | Webmail notifications and actions for any desktop. Quicklist support |
| Birdtray | System tray new mail notification for Thunderbird |
| gnubiff | Mail notification program |
| CheckMails | System tray unread mail checker using the IMAP protocol |
| Go IMAP notify | Monitors IMAP mailboxes and executes scripts |
| Mailnag | Extensible mail notification daemon |
This article has been updated to reflect the changes outlined in our recent announcement.
 Explore our carefully curated directory of recommended free and open source software, covering every major software category.The directory forms part of our extensive collection of articles for Linux enthusiasts. It includes hundreds of detailed reviews, together with free and open source alternatives to proprietary software from companies such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk. LinuxLinks also covers interesting projects worth exploring, Linux-compatible hardware, free programming books and tutorials, and much more. Know a useful free and open source Linux application that we haven’t covered? Tell us about it using our submission form. |