Precision Technology Services

Getting your cheap USB Mail and Webmail Notifier working :

Last Updated : December 2010

Lots of online vendors have been selling these neat USB devices that will provide a physical notification (using coloured lights) whenever you receive new email.

I ordered a couple of these devices to play with, but couldn't get the included software to work properly. The software just never seemed to connect to the mail server properly, despite playing with every option I could find. I didn't have much luck googling for another way to use these devices, but instead found many other people seeking assistance getting their devices working as well.

More recently I found that Ronald Huveneers had decided to write his own software for Windows to control these devices, after having had the same problems as everyone else getting them to work. He started an excellent posting on the DealXtreme forums describing his new software package.

His software works great! You can download a mirrored copy here :
USB Mail Notifier

Here are my custom settings I have configured for using these devices.

• general tab :
  • check every 1 minutes
• plugins tab :
  • tick box next to IMAP plugin
  • click configure button
  • enter in details for email account
• colour settings 1 tab :
  • tick the radio button for "per unread email count"
  • colour starts at 1 unread emails
  • tick the radio button for red colour
  • click apply
• colour settings 2 tab :
  • change on time to 175 ms
  • change off time to 175 ms

I've also found some software from Eric Betts for Mac OS X. It allows you to use these devices in similar ways on Apple's Mac computers. You can read more about it on Eric's USB Mail Notifier page.