GAget - Google Analytics Widget
GAget - Google Analytics Widget

GAget - Google Analytics Widget for OS X

Google Analytics on your Dashboard

Either you’re a web developer, blogger or anyone with a website, you probably use Google Analytics to collect and process crucial data about your site’s visitors.

If you’re using OS X you will love this dashboard widget!

Put Google Analytics on your Dashboard - Download GAget
61,762 downloads since the first release (August 09, 2011).
The current version is 1.3. Changelog
Got questions? Check out the FAQ section!

Features

More information

Although GAget is completely free, you could buy me a coffee if you enjoy using the widget!

For the development I used Dashcode, jQuery, the Google Analytics API and the 4 part series of James Litten about HTML 5 canvas. I used some icons from the awesome IconSweets pack and I got some inspiration from Adrian Kenny and Rovingrob.

Mac OS X ® is a trademark of Apple, Google Analytics ™ is a trademark of Google.

About the developer

Zoltan Hosszu

My name is Zoltan Hosszu and I have been a professional web designer for 10 years now. In all my work I try to create aesthetic and usable things so when it comes to website designing I’m proud to say that I create pixel perfect web design.

This is my first OS X widget and it's only the first release, so if you find any bugs or problems with it, give me a shout at my website or at Twitter and I will try to fix it in the next version.

FAQ

#1 What do I need, to use this widget?

You need to be running OS X (10.5 at least) and a Google Analytics account. If you don't have one of these, downloading this widget is pointless.

#2 How do I use this widget?

After you downloaded the ZIP file, with the nice blue button above, you need to uncompress it and open the GAget.wdgt. OS X should ask you if you're sure about installing the widget on your Dashboard, you should press Install (if you're sure :P). The first time you run GAget you should automatically end up on the back of the widget, the Settings. You need to fill in your Google account information then press Authenticate. If you did everything right, you will be able to select the Analytics profile you wish to display on the front. Select one, press the Save button, and enjoy!

#3 Where does GAget store my information?

Widget information in OS X work like cookies in your browser: every information is stored on the machine you're using the widget on, so make sure you're using it on a personal or safe computer. Your computer communicates directly with Google so the information doesn't travel through other servers. When you remove the widget, every information stored for this widget is also removed so you can safely delete it.

GAget connects to Google's API using ClientLogin method for authentication and sends your data securely only to Google.

However I understand if you have some doubts using your Google account information, but it's necessary to do that for authentication with Google. If you don't trust me, you can always right click the widget file, click "Show package content" and look for the main.js file as that is the controller file of the widget. If you know JavaScript you should be able to find your way around in it and see that the information is only submitted to Google. But if you still don't trust the widget, please don't use it. It's easier for the both of us :)

For the full information, I must let you know that GAget connects to zoltanhosszu.com to get the latest version number, so it can display the "Update 1.x" badge, but no data is sent to my server, only recieved by GAget.

#4 Can I use multiple instances of this widget on my Dashboard?

Yes! This feature has been added in 1.0.5 update, so place as many of it on your dashboard as you want!

#5 I've downloaded an upgrade and installed it, but nothing seems to have changed. What am I doing wrong?

Unfortunately refreshing a widget in OS X Dashboard is quite buggy, sometimes you need to log out and in again to see changes. If nothing seems to work, the best way to update is to first open the "Widgets" widget and manually remove GAget. Then download the latest version from here and install it onto your dashboard. If this doesn't help open Terminal from Applications / Utilities and type the following command: killall Dock

#6 I've updated GAget from a previous version and some of the graphics seem to be misplaced. How do I fix this?

Open Terminal from Applications / Utilities and type the following command: killall Dock . This will restart your Dock and Dashboard and all the widgets, fixing any bug present due to the update.

#7 Mountain Lion says GAget is from an unidentified developer. How do I install it?

Apple introduced the Gatekeeper technology in Mountian Lion, which checks if an app is from a developer registered with Apple. I don't have this certificate (yet). Untill then you can right click the widget and click 'Open'. This will still say it's from an unidentified developer, but you'll be able to Open the file.

#8 I get error 403 when trying to log in and no data is recieved! What now?

As of August 23 2012, Google's Analytics API has been changed to limit every application to 50 000 requests / day. This means that every time you use GAget to check out your data, the number climbs and when a lot of users check the data, this limit can be reached and then Google sends an Error 403: Forbidden feedback to the application. I've contacted Google about increasing the limit for GAget and they were kind enough to raise the bar up to 500 000 / day. Currently this seems to be enough, however as more and more users download GAget, we might reach this limit eventually.

#9 Does GAget support Google's 2 step authentication system?

Yes! To use GAget, open your Google Dashboard and under Account, click the 'Websites authorized to access the account'. Under Application-specific passwords generate a new application-specific password, and just copy & paste it to the password field of GAget, and you're ready to go.

Comments

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GAget 1.2.2
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Zoltan
October 22, 2012 10:24 pm Reply

Okay, so I just enabled commenting on the page. I’ll answer questions here as well if you have any, regarding GAget.

A small update regarding GAget usage: the latest daily requests record is 206k, which happened on October 17. Thank you all for using GAget! <3

Sophie
October 23, 2012 10:34 am Reply

Just updated 1.2 to 1.2.3 (actually 1.2.2) and won’t recognise my Google login? On Mac OS 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) Just tried a couple others – won’t recognise any logins. :(

    Zoltan
    October 23, 2012 10:37 am Reply

    It’s because OSX caches the widgets, so when you update, it won’t load the new file unless you restart the Dashboard. You can do this by typing ‘killall Dock‘ in Terminal or by logging out your user in OSX.

Darren Wall
October 29, 2012 5:21 pm Reply

Is there any way to display the name of the site being tracked on the widget itself? When running multiple widgets for different sites its hard to distinguish between them.

    Zoltan
    October 29, 2012 5:40 pm Reply

    Darren, you can check the selected profile on the top left corner of the widget: http://cl.ly/image/292h0A3d1N1I

    If you set up the names of your profiles in Analytics, it’ll help you distinguish them.

Darren Wall
October 30, 2012 8:42 pm Reply

Wonderful! Thanks for the tip.

Hossein
November 5, 2012 12:40 pm Reply

Wonderful!
Please add real time user feature.
Thanks man.

    Zoltan
    November 5, 2012 1:12 pm Reply

    Google’s API doesn’t support it yet, so I can’t add these features. :(

Sam
November 8, 2012 9:27 am Reply

Hi, is in your analytics dashboard real time visitors? I search dashboard with real time visitors. Thank you

    Sam
    November 8, 2012 9:28 am Reply

    sorry, i read preview question, thank

Matt
November 8, 2012 2:31 pm Reply

I keep getting authentication issues. It worked fine, then I wanted to change my account and now I can’t get it working again. If my password is correct I get: “Error: 404 error. :( Is your account information valid?” If the information is wrong I get: “Authentication error. Please verify your information”

    Zoltan
    November 11, 2012 11:05 am Reply

    You should make sure that you’re using 1.2.3. Google changed things in the API and since then GAget 1.2.2 doesn’t work. After you update make sure to open Terminal and type ‘killall Dock’ which will restart Dashboard and load the latest version of GAget.

Vincent from Computer Tips
November 22, 2012 11:11 am Reply

Wow! Nice widget for Google Analytic. Wish Google API would support real-time analytic too.

However, can you add another feature to check multiple profiles at a time? I mean, I have several sites and it would be great to check their info at a time.

Thanks!

    Zoltan
    November 22, 2012 8:36 pm Reply

    Thanks for the feedback. It has been requested a couple of times to add some sort of option to add multiple sites to one widget, but I always wanted to keep the interface simple.
    However you can always just add a couple of instances of the widget to your Dashboard. :)

      emiliano
      February 18, 2013 11:53 pm

      how do you add multiple instances to the dashboard?

      Zoltan
      February 19, 2013 9:47 am

      You can use the (+) icon in the bottom right of the Dashboard.

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Simona
December 11, 2012 6:41 am Reply

Excellent work! Thank you very much.

Max
December 16, 2012 10:12 am Reply

Thank you. Is there a widget for AdSense as well?

Walid Benoihi
December 17, 2012 5:43 pm Reply

Excellent Work , I Love the creative design by Zoltan Hosszu ..

Thank you and keep it up ..

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Katie
January 1, 2013 3:16 am Reply

Hi,

Awesome Widget! I was just wondering whether a future version might have average pages/visit showing?

Thanks again,
Katie

Don
January 4, 2013 8:17 pm Reply

Nice work. If I’m not mistaken Google does offer real time tracking if you request access for each campaign.

    Zoltan
    January 7, 2013 9:27 am Reply

    Unfortunately according to the API documentation by Google, this is not the case. Even though you can check out the real time data in Analytics, I, as a developer cannot access that data via the API, so I can’t integrate it into GAget. Yet. :)

Diego Eis
January 22, 2013 1:11 pm Reply

Zoltan, how are you?
Good widget… If you put real time number this widget would be 100% perfect. ;)

Best-Mac-Tips
January 27, 2013 9:16 pm Reply

Hi there.
Thanks for this great widget. I’ve have 5 of them on my dashboard.
I am wondering, is there a way to restore all five each time I update it?
At the moment, when I update I have to manually add and set up five instances of the update. If there’s a way to have the previous set up restore itself after the widget is updated, I’d love to know about it.

Thank you,

Jonathan

Adam Blake
February 2, 2013 8:05 am Reply

Hi Zoltan,

Love the widget, but I’ll buy more than a coffee for you if you can make it into a jQuery plugin. I’d like to plug in some GA functionality to a website and would love to use your widget as to do so. Would it be a big task to strip out the Apple-specific widget code and structure it as a jQuery plugin?

Cheers,
Adam

    Zoltan
    February 7, 2013 1:20 pm Reply

    I don’t think that’s gonna happen any time soon. Sorry.

Andrew
February 19, 2013 10:13 pm Reply

Love the widget! Great job. I would love to have this web based some how. Im always on the go and not by my computer. I know you just mentioned Jquery Plugin is a long ways off but any other faster options? I also be willing to buy you lots of coffee.

Thanks,

Andrew

Anders
March 12, 2013 3:07 pm Reply

Love the widget! I saw it earlier here in the comments, but I’d love to get a just as pretty and usable Adsense widget as well if you have the time and energy :) Will send some money over!

Thanks for the most useful iOS-widget ever!

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drench
March 17, 2013 7:23 pm Reply

i can’t add this widget, OS doesn’t ask for install please help.

Dann
March 31, 2013 12:02 am Reply

Possible bug: the widget worked perfectly but after changing the password to a more secure one (21 characters, with lower and upper case, numbers and symbols) it gives me the “Authentication error. Please verify your information” message.

I’ve tried reinstalling it, closing all the widgets and restart, but it doesn’t recognize me anymore (I’m already using the last version: 1.3).

Could this be because the new password is to long? The “?” symbol in the password maybe?

Thank you very much for this great tool!

Dann
March 31, 2013 1:30 am Reply

Ok, I found the problem. It was because of the two steps verification process I activated through the Google Account. After doing that, you need to generate a different password for every application.

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jason
April 12, 2013 7:27 pm Reply

This is awesome! Thank you so much!

Kalle
April 20, 2013 7:01 am Reply

Is Gaget down? Can’t access user data from GAnalytics.

    Zoltan
    April 20, 2013 7:33 am Reply

    No, GAget works just fine. :)

Stefan
April 23, 2013 6:26 am Reply

I have also an error with GAget.
“No data could be retrieved from Google Analytics”.
My internet is up and the Google status is ok.

    Zoltan
    April 23, 2013 6:29 am Reply

    Stefan, it appears GAget has hit the limit for daily requests. I’ll request some more again from Google, but in the meantime please be patient. The limit resets in about half an hour.

      Stefan
      April 23, 2013 9:58 am

      Ah, ok.
      No worries, great tool and great service from you.

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GAget - Google Analytics Widget