Can I increase the time gmail shows me as being available and online?

March 11, 2007 7:39 PM

Can I increase the time gmail shows me as being available and online?

I've got a gmail account. I have google chat installed as well. I've noticed that when I'm logged in, but doing something else on the computer, I don't see someone trying to chat with me unless I've been doing something on my account recently, say, within the past 15 minutes. I understand gmail shows my name in my contact list with a green dot if I've been active in gmail in those past 15 minutes. However, past that time, it goes to orange, and anyone checking my status will not be able to chat with me, even if I'm actually on the computer but doing something else. How do I increase the "time out" for showing me active and online? This is annoying because some people want to chat who live multiple time zones away, and google talk/google chat are their favorite ways of getting my attention. Very annoying problem and makes me not want to use these google products... Any suggestions would be appreciated !

posted by jldindc to computers & internet (11 comments total)

I use Adium to manage all of my instant messaging accounts, including my Google chat. I can set my status to online and it stays that way until I either change it or let my computer go idle. If you're not wedded to the web-based aspect of Google chat, that would solve your problem.
posted by decathecting at 7:46 PM on March 11, 2007

When you say you "let my computer go idle", is that something you set?
posted by jldindc at 7:51 PM on March 11, 2007

I forgot to add that I'm unfortunately using windows. There always seems to be good answer if I was using a mac. Next computer purchase will be a mac...
posted by jldindc at 7:54 PM on March 11, 2007

They should be able to chat even if you're orange; just make your friends aware that orange = green. You should even be able to set your status to something like "Even if it says I'm not here, I am; send me a message!" Then when you legitimately want to be away, set it to "busy" (red) and make known that means you're not around.

Not an ideal workaround but it will do the trick. Then maybe email Google and ask for this as a new feature.
posted by SuperNova at 8:00 PM on March 11, 2007

Gaim (the Windows counterpart to Adium) also supports Google chat.
posted by punchdrunkhistory at 8:06 PM on March 11, 2007

You can connect to gmail using the jabber support in Gaim. Windows gaim feels like a normal windows app if you use the wimp GTK theme. With Gaim, you can report idle times based on using gaim or on system usage and you can set it to automatically mark you away after you've been idle for a configurable number of minutes.
posted by cmm at 8:07 PM on March 11, 2007

I came in to say that GTalk = Jabber hosted at gmail.
posted by onalark at 9:32 PM on March 11, 2007

People chat to me when I'm orange, and Gmail even makes an obliging little "bloink" sound to let me know somebody's doing that.

Orange doesn't mean "you can't chat with me"; it only means "I'm probably not actually looking at my Gmail window right now".
posted by flabdablet at 9:34 PM on March 11, 2007

what flabdablet said. people that you can't actually chat with have a greyed-out circle with an x in it.
posted by juv3nal at 10:43 PM on March 11, 2007

Turn off the web-chat view in Gmail and instead use a jabber client to connect to Gtalk.
posted by cmiller at 9:40 AM on March 12, 2007

Here's a list of selected clients from Google, including their own Windows "Google Talk" client.
posted by mbrubeck at 4:19 PM on March 12, 2007