Using Gmail Notifier with Multiple Accounts

November 15th, 2009

I live and die by Gmail but if you are like me, and have multiple accounts, it can be a challenge to keep track of them. Google has a nifty little Gmail Notifier that runs in your menu bar but it only works for one account. My problem is that I need to track my Appirio account, personal account (I’ve used Google App for my jeffdouglas.com domain for years) and then my Gmail account.

Luckily there’s a way to do this by duplicating the Gmail Notifier app so that multiple copies are running. Here’s the simple process for a Mac:

Right click on the Gmail Notifier application and select “Duplicate”.
Right click on the new Gmail Notifier application that you just created and select “Show Package Contents”.
Open the Info.plist file in the Contents folder in your favorite text editor (ie TextMate)
Find the property called CFBundleIdentifier and change it’s string value from com.google.GmailNotifier to something like com.google.GmailNotifierPersonal.
Now save the file and close your text editor.

Now when you start all of the Gmail Notifiers, your menu bar should look like:

Categories: Google

2 Comments

Michael Seehausen November 16th, 2009
Hi Jeff. Any other suggestions for managing: a corporate google apps account, a personal google apps account, and a gmail account? I’m down to 2 calendars and 2 contacts but iPhone integration isnt great for either. Thanks for the great tips.
alan February 21st, 2011
In last version Google signed their application so just changing CFBundleIdentifier method will not work, but there is a workarounf though http://newmotiongear.com/blogs/index.php/2011/02/20/how-to-re-sign-google.