Use Gmail with Quicksilver
by coelomic
Have you always loved Google and Gmail, and would rather die than use Mail in OS X? Have you always wanted to use Quicksilver to be able to send mail using Gmail. Well as of today you can. The Quicksilver developers have released a Gmail plugin to do just that. All it can do now is “compose” using the web interface and “send directly” if Gmail has been configured in your mail.app
Lets take a look.
First grab the Gmail plugin available in your plugins section. Needless to say you must be using the latest version of Quicksilver, have beta features selected and have advanced settings turned on.
Enable Gmail as your mail handler in the preferences pane under “handlers”.
Next type a message into the first pane, tab over to the second pane and bring up “Email to…(compose)” then tab over to the third pane and select the address you want to send it to and hit return.
If you are signed into your Gmail account then the “compose” web interface comes up with your typed message and the selected email address in the “To” box. Neat.
I hope we get more functionality in the plugin. I love the fact that Blacktree.com releases stuff fast and often unlike Google where stuff in beta languish for years without major improvements!
Hope you find this useful.
Technorati Tags: Quicksilver, Apple, Google, Gmail, Tip, Trick, Howto
[...] Coelomic at WordWorks has produced an excellent tutorial for Gmailers who “would rather die than use Mail in OS X” on how to use the plugin. [...]
If you have the GMail (menubar) Notifier from Google installed you can do all this without the GMail plug-in from QS.
regards,
–matonmacs
Yes, but it doesn’t integrate so nicely into your workflow… maybe you just have to try it to be convinced
1 question.. I think I have gmail setup correctly in Mail.app, but when i’m not logged in it takes me to the login page of gmail. Not a bad thing – my login details are eneterd, i just hit return… but then after trying to load the gmail interafce for a few seconds, it goes straight back to the login page. is this a bug with the plugin? or does it only work if logged in? if the latter, i am really dissapointed. i don’t want to have to remember to be logged in all the time. the gmail notifier can auto-login, why can’t the plugin?
sorry for lazy absence of sentence-case capitalisation in my post.
I don’t get it…I’m running the latest version, have beta and advanced features enabled, enabled the gmail plugin, but I don’t get to see the Mail handler in the handlers preference pane. I also don’t see the notification handler or IM handler although I have enabled the Growl plugin and Chat Support
Nico: Did you make sure to relaunch QS? Do you have Email Support enabled? (That is required, but wasn’t mentioned above.)
I just did this on a fairly fresh install of b48. I did the following: enable advanced features, install Gmail plugin, install Email Support, Relaunch QS. (I think Gmail was automatically set as my email handler.) I didn’t have to do anything with Mail.app (I don’t use it anymore and have never set up Gmail to use it).
The only thing is that I don’t have a lot of my contacts set up in AddressBook and I want it to pull them from Gmail. I’d love to be able to type part of someone’s name, hit enter and then let Gmail complete the name for me. Otherwise I just hit . (period) to enter text mode and hit enter to get it to use no name and then add it from Gmail.
Thanks for the tip. Should make for fast email notes.
easy way to get gmail contacts syncing with address book is soocial.com
Its first time i am here… I want to use this WordWorks thing, hope it will help
thanks
dizyn
I realize that this post is getting old, but I found it useful and I’d like to add some comments to thos trying to figure this out.
This is what worked for me.
1. download/install GMail moudle to quicksilver
2. set QS feature level to “beta”
3. set the mail handler to GMail
4. download and install the GMail notifier for Mac
5. in Mail.app prefs, set default email reader to GMail notifier
That did it for me!
Hope this helps.
Sorry for the late comments –
I’m having trouble with the plugin to “send directly” – the send and compose work. 1) I don’t see Gmail Module in the Handlers (mine says Google notifier instead) and 2) Do I have to have gmail coming to Mail.app for this to work? Thanks
Great, but I have to use Apple Mail for work. I use Gmail for all others. Quicksilver (apparently) only gives me the option to use one of these as mail handler. I wish there was a way to choose between the two.
Anyone?
I have the gmail module installed and available and so I get “Email To … (compose)”, but when i tab to the third pane nothing happens when I type or hit return. Any suggestions?
Thanks, David
I had trouble getting the AddressBook contacts to display. You need to force QS to load the AddressBook. Do this via QS
AddressBook Contacts (Catalog)
Rescan Catalog Entry
Hope this helps.
Alternately, you can simply setup the apple mail program with a fake pop server ala fake.fake.com, and the real smtp server, set Mail to never automatically check for new messages, and use the standard mail handler to send via gmail.
It’s a different sequence, the recipient is the first set of keystrokes, compose is 2nd, and then you’re writing the letter. Tap away, and then command-shift-D, and it’s gone, same as composing in gmail. Especially since the gmail handler composes in a new window/tab.
Hmm, in beta 51, I can’t select a mail handler at all… on intel macbook, 10.4.9. There’s also no option to enable Beta features, even though I have advanced features enabled (& I have restarted QS). Under Handlers, there’re only: IM, String Ranker, File Sys Browser, Missing Object Selector, & Notification…
Ideas?
(Yeah this thread is old, but thought I’d try…)
I’m having the same problem as you, huzzam, also in beta 51. In fact, I think you did quite a good job at explaining my problem *exactly*.
Apparently you need to install Apple Mail Module to get Email Support these days.
Useful tip:
At gmail, export your contacts as “outlook csv” and then import them in the Apple Address Book as “text file”.
Now you’ve got everybody’s addresses for use with quicksilver.
Guys, does anyone know how to get the gmail module to take me to gafyd (google apps for your domain) account rather than the typical gmail address?
Zee,
I’m trying to figure out if this can be done as well. Who developed the plugin? I wonder if it’s open source.
Is there any way to have this gmail plugin access my address book on gmail for the autocompletion of email addresses? I don’t want to have to export and import my gmail address book every time i want to update the list into Apple Mail because it changes so often.
I have the same problem as David. I can put in my email, I can send to email, but I have no contacts that come up. I downloaded my gmail contacts into apple address book. Nothing doing. I also would like to set it up directly with my gmail address book so I dont have to keep on importing like Dave mentioned.
Anyone?
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Thanks for the tip.
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