Frequently asked questions

What is Growl, anyway?

Growl is a notifications system. When something happens in one of your applications, that app can tell Growl, which will then turn around and tell you.

The advantage of this is that you can configure how Growl tells you when things happen. You can have it show a bubble that fades in and out, or play a sound, or read the notification to you, or even send you an email message. You can even have Growl ignore any notifications of specific types—it's all up to you.

For more information, see our About page.

Growl doesn't work!

Cause #1: You have more than one copy of Growl installed

Older versions of Growl allowed you to install it in either your Home folder's Library, or in the Library at the root level of your hard disk. Nowadays, we use an Installer package that only allows you to install it at the root level.

The downside to this is that if you upgraded from an old version that you'd installed in your Home folder, you can end up with two copies of Growl installed, which can confuse some applications and older versions of the Growl framework, and cause them to use the wrong Growl—which, when it sees that another Growl is already running, will exit without showing the notification.

We've fixed this for 1.1.3, but either way, you should make sure that you only have one copy of Growl installed. If nothing else, this will keep your system efficent; you don't want to have an unnecessary Growl process starting and stopping every time something posts a notification.

Cause #2: Logitech Control Center version 2.4

If you're using Logitech Control Center version 2.4, then that's the most likely cause of the problem.

Logitech Control Center includes a program called LCC Scroll Enhancer, along with an Input Manager hack to load the Scroll Enhancer into every program you run. The problem is that, in version 2.4, the Scroll Enhancer has a bug that breaks a number of applications, including TextMate, CrossOver Games, and Growl.

The solution is to upgrade to version 2.5 or later.

GrowlMail doesn't work!

First, make sure GrowlMail doesn't show up in your Preferences. By default, Mail hides it in a chevron menu:

If you see the chevron menu, click on it, and you should see GrowlMail there. Click on it, then make sure the “Enable GrowlMail” checkbox is checked.

No, I mean it causes Mail to crash.

For a time, GrowlMail caused a crash when at least some versions of Safari 4 were installed. We have fixed this in 1.1.5, so if Mail crashes soon (or even almost immediately) after you launch it, you need to update GrowlMail.

If you updated Growl and it still crashes, we remind you that installing Growl does not install GrowlMail. You need to update GrowlMail specifically, using its Installer package inside the Extras folder on the Growl disk image.

If you've updated GrowlMail and it still crashes, please send us the crash log.

No, I mean Mail keeps disabling GrowlMail on me every time I update Mac OS X.

See Why does GrowlMail keep breaking under Snow Leopard?.

Why does GrowlMail keep breaking under Snow Leopard?

Because Apple keeps breaking it.

Starting with Snow Leopard, Mail requires every Mail plug-in bundle to explicitly state which versions of Mail and the behind-the-scenes Message framework the plug-in is compatible with. This is not an “or later” test: The plug-in must identify every specific version it is compatible with, and if your versions of Mail and the Message framework are not on that list, Mail will disable the plug-in and tell you to seek a version that is (explicitly) compatible with your version of Mac OS X.

(You may have heard of this being an issue of “UUIDs”. These text strings are how Mail identifies versions of itself and the Message framework, so that is what we're talking about here.)

As long as you run Mail with GrowlMail installed, we suggest that you hold back on installing a new version of Mac OS X until we can test and release a new version of GrowlMail with it, because this will probably happen with every future Mac OS X update.

This isn't specific to GrowlMail, by the way: It affects all Mail plug-in bundles, so if you use any bundles other than GrowlMail, you will also have to wait for their authors to release updates.

Growl sure uses a lot of memory!

To check Growl's memory usage, launch Activity Monitor, which is in the Utilities folder in the Applications folder at the root level of your hard disk, then type GrowlHelperApp into the search field.

The number for Real Memory should not be more than 50 MB, and is usually less. As you'll see when you run Activity Monitor, this is typical for most applications.

OK, it's using more than 50 MB. What do I do?

First, make sure you're using the current version of Growl. Go into the Growl preference pane and click the “Check Now” button on the About tab.

Second, try a different display style. Some styles are based on WebKit, which means that every notification window is a little web page. Others are pure Cocoa. If you're using a WebKit-based style, try one of the Cocoa-based styles instead.

Smoke is the style that Growl uses by default. Also, if it's not on the above list, it doesn't come with Growl, and there's a good chance that it's WebKit-based. (One more thing: MailMe and SMS are not visual displays, so they are not replacements for WebKit-based styles.)

Growl dumps a lot of .growlRegDict files in my Trash!

The situation: Every time you log in to or start up your Mac, you find that your Trash contains a Recovered items folder, which, in turn, contains a bunch of .growlRegDict files.

The most likely cause of this is that you have more than one copy of Growl installed. Look in both of these locations:

• The PreferencePanes folder in the Library folder in your Home folder
• The PreferencePanes folder in the Library folder at the root level of your hard disk

Current versions of Growl only allow you to install it at the latter location, but older versions let you choose either one. So, if you upgraded from an older version of Growl, you may still have it in your Home Library.

The safest solution is to look in both locations, and delete whichever Growl is older. This will probably be the one in your Home Library.

Hey, can you add support for application XYZ?

No, we can't. It's not that we don't want to; we really can't.

You see, Growl does not (and cannot) actively seek out information about things happening; it waits for the information to come to it. It comes in the form of notifications: Applications tell Growl when something happens.

This means that if an application doesn't have Growl support, it won't tell Growl anything—which means that you won't get notifications from that application.

So you need to ask the developers of that application to add Growl support. There's nothing we can do about it.

How do I add an application to the list in the Growl Preferences?

You don't. Applications register themselves with Growl; you don't have to do anything and you can't do anything. If an application doesn't register, then it isn't communicating with Growl at all, and you registering it yourself would not make a difference.

Some applications don't show up in the list because they require other software in order to support Growl. Here's a handy table:

The adapters that are included with Growl are in the Extras folder on the Growl disk image. GrowlTunes is an application, GrowlMail is a Mail bundle (plug-in), and GrowlSafari is an input manager hack (sorry).

These applications (particularly the ones above) show up in the Applications list under their own names. You'll probably never see “Mail” or “Safari” in the list: you'll see “GrowlMail” or “GrowlSafari” instead, because that's the name of the adapter program.

Why does GrowlMenu use 8 GB of memory?

It doesn't.

You're almost certainly talking about the “VSIZE” number in top (or, on Leopard, the “Virtual Memory” number in Activity Monitor). That number is nearly meaningless; it includes much more memory than what the application has actually allocated. Specifically, it indicates the full size of the process's address space, not how much of that space it's actually using.

GrowlMenu, starting in version 1.2, uses the garbage collection feature introduced in Leopard. The garbage collector reserves 8 GB of address space for future use, but it does not allocate the memory. Thus, it gets counted under VSIZE, but GrowlMenu is not actually using it, and does not have that memory allocated to it. (The vmmap tool will show the memory as “unallocated”.)

In simple terms, GrowlMenu 1.2's address space (on 64-bit Macs) is over 8 GB, but there's an 8 GB hole in the middle. This is just how the garbage collector works; it is not a problem and not a bug in either the GC or GrowlMenu.

The above also applies, to a lesser extent, to GrowlMenu's “VPRVT” (“Virtual Memory” in Snow Leopard's Activity Monitor) as well. That number will be hundreds of MB, but does not accurately reflect how much memory GrowlMenu is really using.

The amount of memory GrowlMenu really uses is much, much less. Look at the “Real Memory” number in Activity Monitor (“RSIZE” in top). It should be no more than a dozen MB.

Adium isn't posting Growl notifications!

By default, current versions of Adium are configured to use Growl if it's available. So, first, make sure that your Adium is up-to-date. You can do this by checking the Adium website.

If your Adium is up to date, make sure that it really is set up to post Growl notifications. The Adium website has instructions on configuring Growl in Adium.

Finally, make sure that Growl's own preferences are set to allow Adium to post notifications. You may have disabled one or more of Adium's notifications, or the entire application, and forgotten it. You can check this in the Growl preference pane, on its Applications tab.

The Installer says “Install Failed”. Why?

Make sure you're trying to install 1.1.4 or later. The “Install Failed” problem was a defect in our installer package for 1.1.3.

I finally got it to install, but the prefpane still says 1.1.2!

This happened when you installed Growl 1.1.2 to the PreferencePanes folder in the Library folder in your Home folder, then installed Growl 1.1.3 to the PreferencePanes folder in the Library folder at the root level of your hard disk. You'd have two Growl prefpanes installed, and the one in the Home folder always takes precedence.

Make sure you're trying to install 1.1.4. The 1.1.2-that-won't-die problem was a defect in our installer package for 1.1.3.

Is Growl compatible with Mac OS X 10.6, Snow Leopard?

• Growl: Growl itself should work just fine.
• Growl preference pane: Somewhat. It works, but you need to restart System Preferences into 32-bit mode.
• GrowlMail: No.
• Growl framework (for developers): It should work, but it's 32-bit only.

We're currently doing the large amounts of work required to make all parts of Growl 64-bit clean, starting with the prefpane and framework. Our current plan is for this work to arrive in 1.2, and for that release to have few or no changes but 64-bit cleanliness.

One complication is that most Cocoa-based displays for Growl (.growlView plug-ins) are 32-bit only. If you've written such a display, please make and release a new, 64-bit clean version.