My killer app for this needs webhooks, or some sort of event notification when mail arrives. Bonus points for making that condition a stored procedure/filter.
Until then I'll probably run out of "quota units" polling the thing..
My solution. Gmail Filter -> Forward to Mandrill Email Address -> Mandrill Webhook -> POST to HTTP endpoint that will issue a Twilio voice call to my phone.
I then have my Twilio number added as a favorite contact in iOS Phone app thus bypassing the scheduled Do Not Disturb feature. I will continue to get calls every 3 minutes until I answer the call and press 5. That's my "shit hit the fan" alarm.
We currently use Gmail IMAP with IDLE to support this use case. It works great, so I hope they don't drop IMAP without a suitable replacement like webhooks.
Until then I'll probably run out of "quota units" polling the thing..