You could try an earlier version. I'm running 0.5.2 which is super slim -- 0.0% CPU most of the time, 1.5% briefly when it's checking mail.

The older version is still available for download at https://github.com/ashchan/gmail-notifr/downloads.

I understand your situation completely. Sorry but this version is written in MacRuby, which only supports 64bit intel w/ 10.6 or higher. v0.5.2 and old are written in RubyCocoa, which has been abandoned by Apple.

With that being said, the new version doesn't have any new features. So I recommend stay with 0.5.2 on SL.

Unfortunately it doesn't work properly for me - it loads and checks all 7 Gmail accounts as it should. But the unread count is wrong - it shows all unread messages from all accounts under each of the 7 accounts, it just combines the unread count and subject lines from all accounts and shows all of them in each account.

You don't need it if you have only one Gmail account.

But if you have more than one then Google's own Notifier won't help you as it can only check a single account.

...more detailed growl messages would be awesome too!
e.g. subject/sender

I understand you concern. Here's why I added sparkle automatic update support:

1, many users have required for this, as they don't want to check macupdate or Gmail Notifr project regularly to see if a new version is coming out.
2, adding it really doesn't effect the app's logic, except:
* the size is bigger
* the memory footprint is larger

Don't worry about the thread numbers, though. Modern OSs take advantages of multiple threading to make apps run faster. Normally the previous version also ran more than one threads. For example, when Gmail Notifr checks for new messages, it checks in a separate thread, otherwise the icon and menu would stop responding as the checking might last several seconds if the connection is slow.

Now look at the Activity Monitor and look at other apps such as Adium and Safari, do they only have one thread? No, normally they have much more.

I really like to keep it simple and small and fast, at least as possible as I can. I listen to users and add what they require and I also agree is good. It's hard for me to make a decision when some users say wow it's good to have XXX while some others blame you for the same thing. Take the new icons for example, some users ask me to switch back to the old ones, but read the old comments, I changed the icons because several users said the old ones just weren't ux friendly (I'm not a designer :> BTW FYI, I'm actually replacing the icons again with some new ones designed by one of my designer friends)

So to speak, I could keep it very small, I could've not added growl, multiple accounts. Man I could even don't offer 'Open Inbox", it's a notifier any ways. :)

I really appreciate that you comment what you thought and comment so politely. I have several complaining emails in my gmail saying Gmail Notifr is getting worse by each version :(

I'm a freelance developer from China. I wrote this because I need one working like this. If there had been some market people telling me what to implement it would have been just easier.

Anyway, I'll try my best to keep it updated, and I'll always listen to users, though I couldn't do as you guys suggest on everything. The next big task is to open inbox for an account with automatic signing in.