Notifications when using FM mobile interface on iPhone

[BritTim]

In general, there seem good reasons to use the FM mobile interface rather than Apple's client. I have found one issue: the lack of notifications when new mail arrives.

Has anyone tried using Ultimate Notifier or some other app to deal with this on Fastmail? Any other ideas on how to address the issue?

[Pfolson]

Originally Posted by BritTim

Has anyone tried using Ultimate Notifier or some other app to deal with this on Fastmail? Any other ideas on how to address the issue?

I've tried a few different solutions. My current set-up is to forward a copy of every message to my iCloud account. The instant iCloud notification I receive alerts me that I have new mail, which I then read in the FM mobile interface. I keep a shortcut to the mobile interface on my iPhone desktop, so I can open the site in one click.

The only drawback is my own carelessness. Sometimes when I'm very busy, in a hurry, or otherwise distracted, I absentmindedly click or swipe the iCloud notification banner and open the message in the Apple mail client instead of remembering to use the FM mobile site. If I'm REALLY distracted, I might even carelessly delete or reply to the message that way, and then my FM account is out of sync. But those are rare occasions. Most of the time my set-up works well, and is a suitable workaround for me until the day we finally get an iOS app for Fastmail.

Paul

[tjtg]

I'm doing something similar to Ultimate Notifier but using Pushover.

I've written a Ruby script which watches my Fastmail inbox for new messages, trims out the first few lines and sends a notification to my android phone and tablet using Pushover. The notifications from Pushover contain a link which opens the Fastmail mobile web interface and I can read the complete email and reply from there.

The script I wrote for this is on github https://github.com/tjtg/imap-pushover and should also work with any other IMAP server that supports IMAP idle. Pushover also supports both iOS and Android.

I think what I've set up is close to what robn was describing here: http://www.emaildiscussions.com/show...42&postcount=5

[BritTim]

Originally Posted by tjtg

I'm doing something similar to Ultimate Notifier but using Pushover.

I've written a Ruby script which watches my Fastmail inbox for new messages, trims out the first few lines and sends a notification to my android phone and tablet using Pushover. The notifications from Pushover contain a link which opens the Fastmail mobile web interface and I can read the complete email and reply from there.

The script I wrote for this is on github https://github.com/tjtg/imap-pushover and should also work with any other IMAP server that supports IMAP idle. Pushover also supports both iOS and Android.

I think what I've set up is close to what robn was describing here: http://www.emaildiscussions.com/show...42&postcount=5

Thank you. This looks interesting. I am busy the next few days, but I have made a note to myself to check this out at the weekend.

[emailer84]

I'm interested in transitioning away from Apple mail to the web interface. I was wondering whether someone had found a good way to receive notifications?

Is there anything in iOS8 that will help with this?
Is FM developing something directly?

[randian]

Originally Posted by emailer84

Is there anything in iOS8 that will help with this?
Is FM developing something directly?

FM is supposedly working on a mobile app. No ETA.

[gcrouse]

Originally Posted by emailer84

I'm interested in transitioning away from Apple mail to the web interface. I was wondering whether someone had found a good way to receive notifications?

Is there anything in iOS8 that will help with this?
Is FM developing something directly?

The Cloudmagic email app does push notifications. It works pretty well with Fastmail.

[randian]

Originally Posted by gcrouse

The Cloudmagic email app does push notifications. It works pretty well with Fastmail.

How can it do that? iOS will automatically shut down IMAP connections and sleep the app. Only EAS and iCloud clients are permitted by iOS to get push notifications.

[gcrouse]

Originally Posted by randian

How can it do that? iOS will automatically shut down IMAP connections and sleep the app. Only EAS and iCloud clients are permitted by iOS to get push notifications.

Don't know - but it seems to work.

[n5bb]

Originally Posted by randian

How can it do that? iOS will automatically shut down IMAP connections and sleep the app. Only EAS and iCloud clients are permitted by iOS to get push notifications.

As you can tell from the name, Cloudmagic is a cloud service whose main purpose is to allow users to search a wide range of personal data (emails, dropbox files, etc.) stored on the Cloudmagic server. Evidently they store your email login credentials on their server, then establish persistent connections to these services from their cloud server. When new messages arrive, the cloud server sends an iOS Notification Center update (to the user, not the background or closed application) via the Apple Push Notification Service (APN). There is a quality of service attempt to buffer and make additional delivery attempts if the iOS device can't be reached via either the cellular or WiFi network.

So you get a notification when a new message arrives, but that message isn't delivered to the Cloudmagic email client on the iOS device until it becomes active in the foreground and completes a connection to the Cloudmagic cloud server, where your emails are stored.

They have evidently recently changed their policy, and no longer save indexed copies of years of your old messages, although recent content is still stored on their servers right now. See:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/show...&postcount=444

Bill

[wam]

Originally Posted by n5bb

As you can tell from the name, Cloudmagic is a cloud service whose main purpose is to allow users to search a wide range of personal data (emails, dropbox files, etc.) stored on the Cloudmagic server. Evidently they store your email login credentials on their server, then establish persistent connections to these services from their cloud server. When new messages arrive, the cloud server sends an iOS Notification Center update (to the user, not the background or closed application) via the Apple Push Notification Service (APN). There is a quality of service attempt to buffer and make additional delivery attempts if the iOS device can't be reached via either the cellular or WiFi network.

So you get a notification when a new message arrives, but that message isn't delivered to the Cloudmagic email client on the iOS device until it becomes active in the foreground and completes a connection to the Cloudmagic cloud server, where your emails are stored.

They have evidently recently changed their policy, and no longer save indexed copies of years of your old messages, although recent content is still stored on their servers right now. See:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/show...&postcount=444

Bill

WOW... Thanks a lot Bill. I tested cloud magic, but after reading your post removed my fastmail account from cloudmagic and changed password for fastmail account.

I dont like saving anything on clouds or online, other than fastmail file area.

[dhy8386]

Originally Posted by tjtg

I'm doing something similar to Ultimate Notifier but using Pushover.

I've written a Ruby script which watches my Fastmail inbox for new messages, trims out the first few lines and sends a notification to my android phone and tablet using Pushover. The notifications from Pushover contain a link which opens the Fastmail mobile web interface and I can read the complete email and reply from there.

The script I wrote for this is on github https://github.com/tjtg/imap-pushover and should also work with any other IMAP server that supports IMAP idle. Pushover also supports both iOS and Android.

I think what I've set up is close to what robn was describing here: http://www.emaildiscussions.com/show...42&postcount=5

Thanks for this. Doesn't seem to be working. When i run it in foreground, i get this error. Any idea?:

EDIT: Got it working. Seems the loofah.rb file was missing a require 'helpers' which i added and then it started working.

/Library/Ruby/Gems/2.0.0/gems/loofah-2.0.0/lib/loofah/instance_methods.rb:116:in `to_text': uninitialized constant Loofah::Helpers (NameError)
from ./imap-pushover.rb:66:in `mail_to_text'
from ./imap-pushover.rb:103:in `block in check_unread'
from ./imap-pushover.rb:87:in `each'
from ./imap-pushover.rb:87:in `check_unread'
from ./imap-pushover.rb:144:in `idle_loop'
from ./imap-pushover.rb:175:in `block (2 levels) in <main>'
from ./imap-pushover.rb:174:in `loop'
from ./imap-pushover.rb:174:in `block in <main>'
from /Library/Ruby/Gems/2.0.0/gems/daemons-1.1.9/lib/daemons/application.rb:255:in `call'
from /Library/Ruby/Gems/2.0.0/gems/daemons-1.1.9/lib/daemons/application.rb:255:in `block in start_proc'
from /Library/Ruby/Gems/2.0.0/gems/daemons-1.1.9/lib/daemons/application.rb:264:in `call'
from /Library/Ruby/Gems/2.0.0/gems/daemons-1.1.9/lib/daemons/application.rb:264:in `start_proc'
from /Library/Ruby/Gems/2.0.0/gems/daemons-1.1.9/lib/daemons/application.rb:296:in `start'
from /Library/Ruby/Gems/2.0.0/gems/daemons-1.1.9/lib/daemons/controller.rb:73:in `run'
from /Library/Ruby/Gems/2.0.0/gems/daemons-1.1.9/lib/daemons.rb:197:in `block in run_proc'
from /Library/Ruby/Gems/2.0.0/gems/daemons-1.1.9/lib/daemons/cmdline.rb:109:in `call'
from /Library/Ruby/Gems/2.0.0/gems/daemons-1.1.9/lib/daemons/cmdline.rb:109:in `catch_exceptions'
from /Library/Ruby/Gems/2.0.0/gems/daemons-1.1.9/lib/daemons.rb:196:in `run_proc'
from ./imap-pushover.rb:173:in `<main>'