Customize & Configure

Show your Gmail unread count

The bar's Mail button can carry an unread badge, so you know there's something waiting without opening a tab to find out. Point it at one label rather than the whole inbox and the number becomes genuinely useful.

Turn it on

Go to Settings → Spreadsheets — the badge lives there, under Gmail unread badge, alongside your other feeds — and tick Show the unread count on the Mail button. It's on by default, so there's a good chance you already have it.

There's nothing else to set up — no sign-in step, no API key, and no extra permissions to grant. URLflows reads Gmail's own built-in unread feed for whichever Google account is already signed in on this browser.

Watch one label instead of the inbox

An inbox-wide count on a busy account is a number that's always big and never actionable. Just below the toggle, Watch one Gmail label instead of the inbox takes a label name and counts only that.

Leave it empty for the whole inbox, or type a label name to narrow it. A filtered label is the useful pattern here — for example a doc-comments label collecting Google Docs comment notifications, so the badge only lights up when someone has actually commented on something of yours.

Clicking the button

With the badge on, the Mail button opens the unread view directly rather than the general inbox — so a click takes you to the messages the number is counting.

When the badge won't appear

  • Your productivity suite is set to Microsoft 365. The badge is Gmail-specific and only shows when the suite is set to Google. Each surface has its own Productivity suite setting, under Settings → Top bar, Side panel, or New Tab.
  • You're not signed in to Gmail in this browser. The count comes from your existing Google session, so there's nothing to read without one.
  • The label name doesn't match. Check spelling against the label as it appears in Gmail, or clear the field to fall back to the whole inbox.
  • The Mail button is hidden. It's on by default, but if you've hidden it there's nothing to put a badge on — re-enable it under that surface's Bar buttons list.

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