How to Keep Webmail Open and Refreshed All Day Without Missing Emails

Gmail and Outlook on the web don't need refreshing: they keep a connection open and show new emails as they arrive. When people miss emails, it's usually because the tab was closed, put to sleep or muted. Fix those, and webmail works fine all day.

1. Give webmail its own place

• Pin the tab: right-click the tab → Pin. It stays small on the left and is hard to close by accident.
• Or open it as an app: in Chrome's menu, choose Cast, save, and share → Install page as app. Mail gets its own window and taskbar icon, separate from your browsing.
• Open it at startup: Settings → On start-up → Open a specific page or set of pages, or Continue where you left off.

2. Stop Chrome putting the tab to sleep

Chrome's Memory Saver frees memory from tabs you haven't used for a while. Go to Settings → Performance and add your mail site, such as mail.google.com, under Always keep these sites active.

3. Turn on notifications

• Gmail: Settings → See all settings → General → Desktop notifications, then allow notifications when Chrome asks.
• Outlook on the web: Settings → General → Notifications.
• Check that Chrome's notifications are allowed in your system settings, and that Do Not Disturb or Focus isn't hiding them.

See managing notifications in Chrome to keep mail alerts while muting everything else.

4. When the page gets stuck

After your computer sleeps or the network drops, webmail usually reconnects by itself. If it shows a connection error for more than a minute, reload it. Checking your connection and Chrome's updates fixes most repeat problems.

Should you auto-refresh webmail?

Usually not. Reloading the page every few minutes doesn't bring mail faster, and a reload while you're writing can interrupt your draft. If you want a dashboard that cycles between your inbox, calendar and other pages on a second screen, AutoBrowser plays a bookmark folder in one tab, staying on each page for the time you set. For pages that do need refreshing, see refreshing tabs at different intervals.

Or use a mail app

If you depend on email all day, a desktop mail app, such as Outlook, Apple Mail or Thunderbird, runs in the background and notifies you even with the browser closed.

Keep track of what needs a reply

Use stars, labels or flags for emails you need to answer, and snooze anything for later. To jot a quick note on a web page, Sticky Notes Anywhere keeps notes in your browser.