How do I get gmail notifications in the notification center?

Desktop
1

Hello all, new user and novice here, on Ubuntu 25.04 with Gnome 48

I can’t figure out how to get gmail alerts, both in popups, and in the notification center

I have logged into the gmail web interface, turned notifications on inside the Settings area, and also clicked Enable Desktop Notifications, which my browser or system prompted me to accept, which I accepted – and STILL isn’t working, unless the tab is active and left open 24/7

But even with my best intentions in mind this isn’t a great solution as I am missing alot. In Windows, I somehow get these alerts at all time, regardless of browser status

I added gmail and it’s linked inside Settings → Online Accounts

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But still nothing

Thanks kindly for any help

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2

Do you have an mail application like Evolution or Geary installed?

3

Not sure if this still works on Ubuntu v25.04 but my 22.04 instance allows me to install GNOME GMail source Ubuntu (deb) from the Software app.

4

No!

It doesn’t appear to be installed, I just searched for both of those names in my search area

I typically, on Windows, just use it inside a browser, at mail.google.com

However somehow their alerts and notifications work regardless of browser being open, it must have some kind of background access that GNOME isn’t doing?

5

Hmm, I can ask AI for help with this maybe!

Thanks for replying, as of right now I am still stuck and in need

6

If you’re accessing gmail in a browser,

should help.

7

Thank you, I should’ve added to OP that those are among the first things I did

I put have notifications set to on, and also clicked the setting to explicitly request & then allowed desktop notifications, and it still doesn’t seem to be working to my dismay!

8

Works fine for me in Firefox / Chrome.

Here are the rough steps.

  • You need to enable Click here to enable desktop notifications for Gmail link in Gmail settings.
  • Browser should allow notifications from Gmail. Check browser settings → notifications.
  • Gmail should be open in one of your browser tabs to send notifications to your desktop.
  • Only notifications from Inbox and primary categories will be reported by Gmail. If you’ve archiving the emails received to a folder etc, it will not be shown.
9

Well, I asked about a mail client because of this:
In order to receive notifications on GNOME, some process needs to check for them locally.

“Normally”, this would be a local mail client. The ones I mentioned, Geary and Evolution, can use the GNOME Online Accounts for access. So if one of them is installed and launched, they would run in the background and check for new mails.

As for the web client…
Normally this would only work when the website is opened so it can check for new mails. So keeping it open in a browser should do the trick, as @Sid recommended.

Now, if I’ve read the docs correctly, a website can implement push notification, meaning the server notifies the client if something happens.
With a website, this seems to run over the browser, so it would need to run. Though as far as I know Firefox, and Chrome probably as well, on Linux do not run in the background, but quit when no window is open anymore. And no browser process means no process receiving the push notification, as Linux lacks a universal push notification system, like Android (and maybe Windows) has.

So, to sum it up, you have three solutions:

  • Use a native, local mail client, such as Geary or Evolution
  • Keep GMail open in a browser
  • Find out how to keep the browser running in the background
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