Tools for HEY

HEY notifications on your Mac

MenuBar for HEY puts a macOS notification on your screen when a new thread lands in your HEY Imbox, with Reply Later and Set Aside one click away.

MenuBar for HEY is free and unofficial, made by Soules Studio LTD and not affiliated with 37signals.

Last updated .

What HEY gives you on a Mac

The HEY apps can notify you for the contacts and threads you choose. Those notifications come from HEY itself, and you pick them in HEY.

MenuBar for HEY does a different job beside that. It sits in the menu bar, watches your Imbox and speaks up when a new thread lands there, so you see what arrived and can deal with it before you open HEY.

How MenuBar for HEY does it

MenuBar for HEY runs the official HEY CLI, which ships inside the app, and keeps one of its commands running while you are signed in: hey watch --box imbox --json.

That command holds a live stream open to your Imbox. Threads that arrive on it while the app is connected to HEY become notifications, and each one updates the badge in the menu bar.

You sign in through the CLI, which opens HEY's sign in page in your browser. The app never holds your password or a token, and every piece of mail it shows comes through that tool, running on your Mac.

How MenuBar for HEY works with the HEY CLI covers the tool, the sign in and the live stream in more detail.

Read how MenuBar for HEY handles your data, or see everything else the app does on the MenuBar for HEY page.

What a notification shows

The sender and the subject

New mail notifications are on by default. Each one takes the sender's name as its title, or their address when there is no name, and the thread's subject as its body. Click the notification and the thread opens in HEY in your default browser.

Reply Later and Set Aside

Two buttons act on the thread without opening it. Reply Later and Set Aside move it out of your Imbox, the same as the buttons of those names in HEY. If a move does not go through, a second notification says so, with HEY's own message and the words "Open it in HEY to move it."

A calm pace

MenuBar for HEY sends at most three notifications a minute. The badge in the menu bar still counts every new thread in your Imbox.

Turning them off

Open Settings in MenuBar for HEY, choose Notifications and switch off New mail, the setting described as "A notification when a thread lands in your Imbox."

New senders in the Screener

HEY holds mail from first time senders in the Screener until you decide whether you want to hear from them. MenuBar for HEY can tell you when someone new is waiting there.

This notification is off by default. To turn it on, open Settings in MenuBar for HEY, choose Notifications and switch on New senders, the setting described as "A notification when someone new is waiting in your Screener."

Each one shows the sender's name, their address and the subject of their first message, with two buttons. Screen in lets them through to your Imbox. Screen out screens them out, as the same button does in HEY. To send a sender to The Feed or Paper Trail instead, use the menu on the Screen in button in the popover.

Allow notifications in System Settings

macOS asks whether MenuBar for HEY may send notifications the first time the app needs to. Since New mail is on by default, that is usually the first time the app connects to HEY after you sign in. If every notification setting is off, macOS asks when you turn one on instead.

If you chose Don't Allow, or turned them off later, you can allow them again. Open System Settings, choose Notifications, find MenuBar for HEY in the list of apps and switch on Allow notifications.

While macOS is blocking them, the Notifications settings of MenuBar for HEY say "macOS is blocking notifications for MenuBar for HEY. Allow them in System Settings." The Open notification settings button beside it takes you straight to the right row.

They are ordinary macOS notifications. Focus, Notification Center and the alert style you choose in System Settings treat them as they treat any other app's.

After sleep or a dropped connection

When your Mac wakes from sleep, when the network comes back, or when the stream stops for any other reason, MenuBar for HEY starts watching your Imbox again on its own.

Mail that arrived in the meantime is caught up quietly. The badge counts it, and no notification is sent for it, so waking your Mac in the morning never sets off a burst of notifications about mail that is already waiting.

Signing out of MenuBar for HEY withdraws the notifications it delivered. Quitting the app leaves them in Notification Center, and their buttons still work.

Questions

Can I read HEY in Apple Mail?

HEY is read in its own apps and on the web. The official HEY CLI lets other tools on your Mac work with your HEY account too. MenuBar for HEY is one of them: it reads your Imbox through the CLI, sends the notifications, and runs alongside Apple Mail or whichever app you use for your other accounts.

When does a notification arrive?

When a new thread lands in your Imbox while MenuBar for HEY is running and connected to HEY. A thread that arrives while your Mac sleeps or the app is closed is counted on the badge once the app reconnects, without a notification.

Which mail does MenuBar for HEY notify me about?

New threads in your HEY Imbox. With New senders turned on in its settings, MenuBar for HEY also tells you when a first time sender is waiting in the Screener. Mail in The Feed and Paper Trail stays where HEY puts it, without a notification.