New mail at a glance, without a browser tab.

Why desktop email notifications are so hit-and-miss

Google doesn't make a Gmail app for Windows. Gmail's own desktop notifications come from your browser, so they only work while a Gmail tab is open somewhere and the browser is allowed to notify you. Close the wrong window and the notifications stop without telling you.

Mail apps on Windows do better, but they bring their own trade-off: a full email client that wants to be your whole morning. And pop-up notifications have a habit of turning every newsletter into an interruption.

What most people actually want is simpler: a reliable signal that says "three new emails in Work" and a fast way to deal with them when you're ready.

How TopDock does it

TopDock reserves a thin strip at the top of the screen, the way the taskbar reserves the bottom, so maximised windows never cover it. Each inbox gets a tile with a badge. Click a tile and a panel drops down with your messages. Press Esc and it's gone.

• One tile per inbox, with its own name and colour
• A badge with the number of new messages, updated every few minutes
• A small "last synced" time, so you know the count is current
• A clear warning on the tile if a sign-in expires or you're offline

Badges by default, pop-ups only where you want them

A badge waits for you. A pop-up demands attention now. TopDock starts with badges only, and you decide which tile, if any, deserves a pop-up. Maybe your manager's inbox does and your newsletter inbox never will.

• Pop-ups per tile. Off by default, on for the inboxes that matter.
• Quiet hours. Hide badges and pop-ups on a schedule, for example 18:00 to 08:00. Overnight spans work.
• Quiet now and pause. One click in the tray when you need an hour of focus.

Several Gmail and Outlook inboxes, side by side

Connect a personal Gmail, a work Outlook and a shared support inbox, and give each one a name and colour so you never guess which badge means what. Prefer one count for everything? Merge them into a combined tile that still shows where each message came from. There's more on that in our unified inbox page.

Private by design

You connect each account through Google's or Microsoft's own sign-in page, so TopDock never sees your password. Sign-in tokens are kept in Windows Credential Manager on your PC. There's no TopDock server in the middle: the app talks straight to Gmail and Outlook. The privacy policy spells out exactly what's stored where.

TopDock or a browser extension?

Notifier extensions for Chrome and Edge are a popular way to get Gmail alerts, and they're good at it. The catch is that they live in the browser: they only run while it's open, and Outlook usually needs a different tool. TopDock is a Windows app, so it covers Gmail and Outlook (plus X, Reddit and a todo list) whether or not a browser is running. We compare the two approaches in TopDock vs Checker Plus for Gmail, and walk through every built-in option in How to get Gmail notifications on your Windows desktop.