New Mail Sound

Same issue for me. New mail sound notification does not work.

In general preferences of Mail there’s a checkbox to show only the main mailbox number of messages in the dock icon; it might affect the sound played when messages arrive too…

Same problem here... I'll glance at the Mail icon in the dock and see that new messages have arrived, but the New Mail Sound doesn't work. I've tried everything I can think of, but nothing makes it work when I receive new mail.

Many of us are having the same problem , see here -http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1199018&tstart=250

Same problem, see also here:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5775133

Hola chicos, (OK guys)

Here’s a solution to the (simple) Mail Notification Sound problem that most people are furious over. Whether it’s plays a sound occasionally or not at all, clearly there is a bug in Mail which prevents it playing sounds alerting you to any incoming mail.

There is even a rule you can apply in Mail>Preferences>Rules called Play Sound which SHOULD play a AIFF file of your choice on receipt of Every Message. But I’ve found this not to work too!

So, here’s a workaround in 2 easy steps:
(You need an AIFF sound file. Got it? Good)

_*STEP 1 - Modify & Save this tiny Applescript:*_

Imagine I have the following AIFF on my HD.
/Users/mrlinguafranca/Library/Sounds/doorbell.aiff

A. Copy n Paste the following into the ‘Script Editor’ application on OS X.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
tell application "Finder"
open document file "doorbell.aiff" of folder "Sounds" of folder "Library" of folder "mrlinguafranca" of folder "Users" of startup disk
end tell
------------------------------------------------------------------------

B. Change the parameters with the location of YOUR AIFF file
C. Click ‘Run’ to test that it plays the sound file. (Success? Good).
D. Save it somewhere and exit.

_*STEP 2 - Setup a Rule in OS X Mail*_

1. Open Mail.
2. Click Mail>Preferences>Rules.
3. Click Add Rule.
4. Set up the rule as follows:
Give the rule a meaningful description e.g. PlayMailNotificationSound
“If ANY of the rules are met” select (Every Message) from the drop down.
Perform the following actions select (Run AppleScript) select (THE LOCATION OF YOUR APPLESCRIPT)
Click OK.
5. Restart OS X Mail.
6. Send yourself a mail and listen carefully.

Hopefully it’ll work for you as it works for me.

(If even I can think of a workaround, what are the guys at Apple doing?)

Buen dia.

Mr Linguafranca.

Thankyou MrLinguaFranca, this work around script kind of works.
When I receive mail now iTunes opens and plays the aif file, is there any way to stop iTunes opening, but still play the aif file ?

Si senore, hay! (Yes sir, there is)

The script just tells OS X to play the AIF file you select. So it will open the file in iTunes or whatever other player you have configured as the default player for those audio files. Right-click on an AIF files and click 'Get Info' and it'll list the 'Opens with'. What you need here is to choose an alternate player which simply plays a sound and disappears into the background.

This is a freebie utility that I use to do that very thing:

http://microcosmsoftware.com/playsound/

It's a tiny utility that you just copy somewhere in your Applications folder to install. (Mine is in /Applications/Utilities).

Then assign ALL AIF files to open with Play Sound instead. To do that, right-click on an AIFF file, choose 'Get Info' and in the 'Opens With' drop down, choose Play Sound. Make you check the 'Change all' checkbox so it does this for all AIF files. (In fact you can decide to only use Play Sound for your email notification sound or as a simple AIF player - the choice is yours).

That's it!

Let me know how you get on.

Cheers.

MrLinguaFranca.

I use DockStar:

http://www.ecamm.com/mac/dockstar/

This allows you to give each mailbox a specific shape and color to notify of new mail and you can also assign a specific sound to each mail box.

MrLinguaFranca you are a genius, Apple should employ you.

Thank You Very Much

Your script and the playsound work perfectly.

I publicly applaud You.

Thank You,
Rodney.

MrLinguaFranca fixed it for us, but Apple still can't with 10.5,2

Maybe my wild conspiracy theory is correct - Microsoft wrote Leopard. It has all the hallmarks.

Indeed a very nice tip, thank you very much!

On my own machine I have changed the script a little bit so I don't have to assign any filetypes permanently with "Play Sound" and to quit that little app after having played the sound, otherwise it remains in your memory permanently. This is what I use:

+tell application "Play Sound"+
+play "Macintosh HD:Users:Morbo42:Music:Misc:New Mail.aiff"+
quit
+end tell+

Of course you have to change the path to the sound file accordingly. You can even play the original 'New Mail' sound if you extract that simply from the Mail.app package. Simply ctrl-click on Mail.app in Finder, select 'Show Contents' and navigate to "Mail.app->Contents->Resources->New Mail.aiff", there it is! Just copy it somewhere else and it can be used it in the script like I did above.

This works nicely for me, at least until Apple finally gets Mail.app right again.