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Growl Notification Position – What’s The Best Setup (Poll)

Posted in Apps on 20/03/2011 by Cormac Moylan

8s

Growl

Growl is a popular notification app for Mac. It’s probably one of the most downloaded and installed 3rd party apps on OS X since it comes bundled with so many other apps.

Apps such as Mail.app, GmailNotifier, MailPlane, & Spotify all use Growl to notify you of in-app activities.

By default, Growl.app places a “smoke” notification in the top right corner of your screen. But is this the best place to position the Growl notification?

Personally, I believe the default position is the worst choice because the top right corner of my screen is an area that I frequently use. My mouse cursor practically lives in that area as that is where most of the toolbars & menus of the apps I use are positioned.

I find that receiving Growl notifications in the top right hand corner distracts and causes me to either pause my work or to click the Growl notification so that it disappears. And sometimes even clicking on the Growl notification will bring up the app. Grrrr! Not what I wanted to do.

Growl Notification Settings

I have instead configured Growl to show notifications in the bottom left hand corner of my screen as this is an area of the desktop that I very rarely use and it is a bit outside of my eyeline. This means I can choose to ignore some notifications if my work requires a lot of concentration, and I no longer have to click to exit Growl notifications as they don’t overlap any apps.

Where have you configured your Growl notifications to appear? Vote in the above poll and drop us a comment telling us how you have Growl setup and why.

  • filipbeelprez

    Above right corner seems logic to me and does not interfere with the dock which is at the bottom.

    • mactrast

      I suppose that depends how big your dock is too. Good point.

      (I have a small dock!)

      • MPW

        remember, it's not the size of the dock, it's how you use it :-D

  • Marc

    "And sometimes even clicking on the Growl notification will bring up the app. Grrrr! Not what I wanted to do." – If you didn't already know, go to Applications tab, choose the app and hit Configure, then untick 'Inform X when a notification is clicked'

  • http://allyouneedislists.com Sietse

    bottom right FTW!

    I've actually had that thing all over the place, even with that "Music Video"-kinda-theme which covers half your screen. It all depends on my mood, I think :)

    oh and I tend to keep a maximum of 10 items in my dock with small icons

    • mactrast

      I have 11 in my Dock. Alfred FTW!

      I'm using the music video theme at the moment. It's interesting. I think we could do with more notification options from Growl.

      I would love to have the option to see notifications appear in both the left and right center of the screen and below the dock.

  • Thomas Aune

    Possible to display growl notification on external screen?

  • rehan

    do you if you can move the notifications to the center of the right of your screen?
    i would love it if that happened

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Cormac Moylan

Cormac is the head honcho behind MacTrast. Based in Cork, Ireland, his first foray into the Apple world was way back in 2006 when he purchased an iMac followed by a Macbook around 4 weeks later. He currently owns a Macbook Pro, iMac, Mac Mini, iPhone 4, iPod Touch, Apple TV, and has more than 30 pairs of shoes. He is also the Head of Digital at VisiTravel - a company that lists hotels in Ireland on their GoIreland site and offer cheap car hire through NovaCarHire.