Push notifications with Gmail and IFTTT

I find it useful to get push notifications when a post is added to a thread I'm following, mostly because notification emails quickly bog down my inbox. I've set up Gmail so that the "New Post" emails bypass my Inbox and instead trigger IFTTT to send a push notification to my phone. This is probably not for everyone, but it works wonders for me. I thought I'd share my setup in case others find is as useful.

1. Subscribe to email notifications
Yes, that's a lot of noise, but we'll deal with that later..

Go to Profile -> Set "Receive new game emails?" to yes


Concratulations, you got mail!

2. Setup filters in gmail
Go to gmail.com from a computer (I'm not sure if you can access filters from the mobile site, if you find out how to do this let me know and I'll update the guide).

In gmail, press the cog on the right side, and choose Settings
Go to the Filters and Blocked Addresses tab. Press Create a new filter


Enter filter parameters:
* From: contact@gamersplane.com
* Subject: New Post



On the next page, check Skip the Inbox, and Apply the label. Create a new label called "Gamersplane_posts" (or whatever you'd like, but remember it, since we are going set it in IFTTT)



Save or update the filter

The notification emails now bypass your inbox, so you don't notice them anymore. Next, let's make so we notice them again...

3. Set up IFTTT to send push notifications
Download the IFTTT app on your mobile device (i use iOS, but this should work for Android as well).
Download iOS here or Android here
IFTTT is an app that lets you automate actions based on triggers (like sending a push notification whenever you get an email with a certain label)

Create a new applet, and choose the Gmail applet maker



Choose trigger: New email in inbox labeled (i know, it bypasses the inbox, but ignore that, IFTTT doesn't seem to care)
Enter the label we created in Gmail earlier ("Gamersplane_posts" or whatever else you called it)

Select action service: Choose Notifications and Send a notification
Enter a notification format (up to you, I use "New GamersPlane Post!: Subject")

Press next, then Finish.

You are set. You should now get Push notifications whenever someone posts in a thread you are following.

Let me know if you get this to work and if it's useful for you. You can probably use this with other email services as well, as long as there is an IFTTT trigger for it, but I haven't tested any other providers.

This is SUPER cool, thank you! One day, we will have a GP app, but until then, this is pretty damn awesome. I'm moving this to the guide section so it doesn't get lost!

It seems to work for the most part, however, I get a 'file not found' in the notification box. Any idea what might be causing this?

Really useful, Thanks!

Glad to help :)
Yeah, I noticed that yesterday. I'm not sure what that image is supposed to be, or where it comes from. I'm guessing something has changed, and the Gmail applet hasn't been updated. If we're lucky there might be some way of configuring it, but I haven't had time to look into it. I'll update the guide if I figure it out. On iOS it looks like this:

Don't have an Android to test on, does it look worse there?

Yeah, it looks way worse on android. If you didn't see it before:

As you can see, it is not as subtle and is pretty much the main subject of the notification. I wouldn't mind it as much if it was like the picture you posted but I am glad that it wasn't a user error.

Woah! Yeah, that's a bit worse. I'll see if I can figure out whats causing it. Or report it to IFTTT if I cant (might be a bug after all).

If it's some sort of primary image I have to set, let me know.

Will do. I played around with it a bit yesterday, but couldn't figure out what the image is supposed to be. Sendt a support request to IFTTT, hope they can tell me what's wrong. I'll update as soon as I've got anything. I also played around with Pushover and Pushbullet, but it's annoying to require a second app (and Pushover costs money), so I'd rather make this work with the IFTTT notifications.