Use Google Apps On Desktop With GMDesk

The most popular web app provider is Google and you can see yourself spending countless hours on Gmail, Google Calendear, Google Maps, Google Reader, and Picasa Web Albums every day. It is not uncommon to see opened windows with theses web apps everywhere as more and more people rely on the cloud.

GMDesk is an open source Adobe Air based application that opens Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Maps, Google Reader and Picasa Web Albums on the desktop. It therefore, eliminates the needs to use a browser to access numerous Google services. There are few reasons why it makes sense to use them on the desktop instead of the browser. Suppose you are working on a thesis in Google Docs or reading news items in Google Reader and your browser crashes immediately, what about your work? Also would you risk losing your work to restarting browser just because of one add-on? Saving work across multiple services can be a daunting task too. It makes more sense to place them permanently on the desktop, than to find them across multiple tabs inside a web browser.

After launching the app, it redirects you to a Google login page. All Google web applications can be accessed with a single click via the Google Applications menu. Selecting a Google app from this menu redirects the user to it.

To configure GMDesk options, go to GMDesk –> Preferences, from where, you can select a Google Service to login with when GMDesk starts and/or specify a Google apps Domain.

GMDesk is not a feature rich app, it is basically takes the web apps and put them on the desktop. If you are looking for accessing all Google apps from within a single application, you can give it a try. Being an Adobe Air app, it works on Windows, Mac and Linux.