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I like my Mail alerts loud and my coffee fresh

Posted by Kate Marshall | Monday, September 08, 2008 6:45 AM PT

mail screenshot.jpgI was beginning to think I was crazy (or crazier than usual). New emails would show up in Mail, via the nifty little Dock icon telling me I had “x” number of unread messages waiting for me. But the “new mail” sound was nowhere to be found (heard). Since I know the deafness hasn’t totally set in yet, you can imagine why a MacFixIt tip about Mail’s lack of sound would pique my interest.

It seems that even new Macs have encountered this odd little problem of not playing a “new mail” alert sound but still displaying relevant Dock indicators. Possible solutions include the following (see MacFixIt for more details):

  • Changing the permissions of sound files via Terminal (read the directions and be careful)

  • copying system-level sounds to your user folder

  • disabling “IDLE command” support

  • installing the GrowlMail plug-in

  • creating a new rule for applying sound to received mail

  • The Terminal commands didn’t work for me but copying the sound files over seems to have done the trick thus far. And if that stops working, I suppose there’s always good old-fashioned smoke signals.

    Comments (4)

    Weird, same thing started yesterday on my iphone, no sound alerts at all but settings haven't changed...

    kp
    September 08, 2008
    10:38 AM PT

    The chmod commands in the referenced article are a bit unsafe.

    I'd recommend instead to change the first part to (on both sets of commands) to:

    chmod -R a+rX

    That command will make every file readable by all users on the system. In addition, if a file (or subdirectory) is executable by anybody, the execute permission will be turned on as well.

    lar3ry
    September 08, 2008
    10:46 AM PT

    Had the same problem. Uninstalled the Logitech Control Panel, and voila - my 'new email' sound was back.

    September 09, 2008
    6:50 AM PT

    Occasionally no ring on the iPhone and rarely sound alert on Mac Mail. Mail alerts on the iphone seem to work, meh.

    Doug
    September 16, 2008
    2:14 PM PT

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