How hard is it to make mail alerts work?

BamaInArk · Jan 22, 2024

JohnnyGui said:
But during your tests, was there an Outlook icon in the right lower corner? Mind you I'm not talking about the alerts, simply an Outlook icon next to the clock in the system tray.

This is what I see for a Notification. A popup dialog plus the little bell gets colored blue.

JohnnyGui · Jan 22, 2024

BamaInArk said:
This is what I see for a Notification. A popup dialog plus the little bell gets colored blue.

Thanks for clearing that up. I see you get mail alerts without Outlook having an icon in the systray. In my case, I NEED to manually open Outlook or minimalise it to the systray in order to receive mail alerts.

No idea how I can fix this.

TairikuOkami · Jan 22, 2024

JohnnyGui said:
No idea how I can fix this.

Try to disable "Show Notifications in Notifications Center" for Outlook.
That setting can hide notifications after you received 3 or more.

boombastik · Jan 22, 2024

To fix this you need to go in new outlook.
Open options and go in manage your email, and click the start in "import settings from outlook for windows" and

it will fixed.

dacrone · Jan 22, 2024

In all the time spent going back and forth about claims that it works when not running (which is false), you could’ve just written a .bat to launch it and close out of the window and placed that in your startup folder, in conjunction with allowing it to operate in the background apps. Problem solved.

BamaInArk · Jan 22, 2024

I would also add that sometimes the Outlook icon(mail envelope) in the Task Bar(not to be confused with the system tray) will sometimes show a number representing the number of new emails. But I don't see that all the time.
And a reminder in my case Outlook is only configured with one account......my Microsoft Outlook account email. Rarely get any emails there.

I also have Office 365 and that Outlook has more profiles in it.

JohnnyGui · Jan 22, 2024

dacrone said:
In all the time spent going back and forth about claims that it works when not running (which is false), you could’ve just written a .bat to launch it and close out of the window and placed that in your startup folder, in conjunction with allowing it to operate in the background apps. Problem solved.

Hold on because there was a misunderstanding before regarding that claim. With "not running" are you talking about the app or the background process itself? Because simply closing the app should not interfere with mail alerts, since there should be a background process still running. This is not the case for me as for many others while it worked fine before, also shown by previous posts.

Your suggestion is a workaround. I'd like to know what causes this and whether I can fix it since it does work for some.

Kees · Jan 22, 2024

For many, many years I am using a small (freeware, open source) program called PopMan, that's started at system startup. It has an icon in the system tray and you can set the setting for more mailboxes to be watches, each having their own color. And much more settings, like give a sound as mailalert or a popup or just the icon having a color. Things like that. It can be used in many languages, selectable in the settings.

It can be downloaded here: PopMan
It has been maintained until 3-2023, so not too old, runs 100% in Windows 11.
Latest version is 1.3.18.

You can click in the popup window to start your mailapp.
It is fully independent of Windows Notifications!

boombastik · Jan 22, 2024

You seem to believe that what i write has no relationship with the problem but this is the fix for the outlook don't show notifications. Try it.
Thanks for your time.

Edwin · Jan 22, 2024

boombastik said:
... this is the fix for the outlook don't show notifications.

I think this is valid, to a certain degree...,
Until I did the Import Settings thing, I did not have an Outlook (new) specific entry here..., now I do!

JohnnyGui · Jan 22, 2024

I have some good news.

After deleting both the Mail and Outlook app and reinstalling the Outlook app, now mail alerts appear for my Outlook account even when the app is closed.

However, this is not fixed for my Gmail account; it's still not showing mail alerts when Outlook app is closed. Not sure if this is normal behavior for Gmail accounts added in the Outlook app in general

boombastik said:
You seem to believe that what i write has no relationship with the problem but this is the fix for the outlook don't show notifications. Try it.
Thanks for your time.

Sorry I didn't test this out yet. I fixed it for my Outlook account by reinstalling the app but my Gmail account in the app still has the issue. It does not show your mentioned option when I select my Gmail account in Outlook settings.

Edwin · Jan 22, 2024

JohnnyGui said:
... this is not fixed for my Gmail account

Bummer! I only use Gmail!

Every client should have it's own onboard push notification settings!

Helmut · Jan 23, 2024

The notifications are flakey from the Mail App, when you set it as running in the background you do get a variable delay with the Mail App closed, seems to be true of Windows 10 and 11, currently.

Latest info Win 10 on 3 accounts is around 1 min to 30-60 min delay to get the notification with Mail App closed. Same on Win 11 but is around 5 mins.
This is rather a small real world sample.

With 6 Accounts setup over many years, variations in notifications and the badge marker of unread mails on the Taskbar Mail icon.

Does not bother me as I open the Mail App frequently, notification variations are a very minor point.

There is no instance in the System tray bottom right, the Notification Icon very far right fills in on receiving mail and if you click on it you get a preview popup as normal. Also badge marker on the Taskbar icon for the Mail App, also normal.

Edwin · Jan 23, 2024

Helmut said:
The notifications are flakey from the Mail App

Everything in Windows is flakey!

All Clients should have unified accounts ability, and, inbox notifications..., the hell with Windows' convoluted notification settings!
Jeebus,
you can't even set the New Outlook to start minimized!

JohnnyGui · Jan 23, 2024

Helmut said:
The notifications are flakey from the Mail App, when you set it as running in the background you do get a variable delay with the Mail App closed, seems to be true of Windows 10 and 11, currently.

Latest info Win 10 on 3 accounts is around 1 min to 30-60 min delay to get the notification with Mail App closed. Same on Win 11 but is around 5 mins.
This is rather a small real world sample.

With 6 Accounts setup over many years, variations in notifications and the badge marker of unread mails on the Taskbar Mail icon.

Does not bother me as I open the Mail App frequently, notification variations are a very minor point.

There is no instance in the System tray bottom right, the Notification Icon very far right fills in on receiving mail and if you click on it you get a preview popup as normal. Also badge marker on the Taskbar icon for the Mail App, also normal.

Despite the delay, you still get alerts for your Gmail account that's added in the Mail app?

Wisewiz · Jan 23, 2024

Helmut said:
Also badge marker on the Taskbar icon for the Mail App, also normal.

I don't believe your taskbar icon can possibly get any new-mail badges unless the Mail app is running. Window closed, maybe, but running.

JohnnyGui · Jan 24, 2024

A nitpick; I don't hear any sounds when a mail notification popup appears despite having it set to ON in the Outlook settings.

Is that normal these days for Outlook?