Create rule to NOT play new mail sound in certain criteria?

Question

Level 1

106 points

Create rule to NOT play new mail sound in certain criteria?

In "Rules" there is an option to play a particular sound. Can I do the opposite, and have NO sound when my criteria is met? (But still have my normal sound the rest of the time.)

IMac G5 and iBook G4, Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on Mar 17, 2008 4:55 PM

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Answer 1

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Mar 18, 2008 1:32 AM in response to Trevor C

Yes, by simply not selecting the option to play a sound. Just delete that element of your rule.

However, you cannot omit the new mail sound selectively. You can turn mail sounds on or off. They are not directly controllable in a rule.

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Answer 2

Trevor C Author

Level 1

106 points

Mar 18, 2008 4:11 AM in response to Kappy

So, although you've said "yes", what you actually mean seems to be "no". ;o) Or at least not by using rules. (Which I admit I did ask about.)

Can I achieve my aim some other way? To have all emails play a sound except ones addressed to certain email address.

A fancy terminal command, perhaps?

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Answer 3

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Mar 18, 2008 7:25 AM in response to Trevor C

Well, here's the problem. The four mail sounds are hard-coded into the Mail app. You can either activate them or not in Mail's General preferences. If you turn them off then you do not get a New Mail alert when new mail arrives. Now, you could write a rule the plays your own custom sound each time a new message is received, but then if you got 10 messages you'd hear the sound 10 times rather than once.

Rules act on a message by message basis whereas the built-in mail sounds only play upon specific events independently of each message.

You can write a rule that plays a sound for specific messages. If you wish you can create a rule that says, essentially, if a message is from my Aunt Agatha then play a sound and file the message in my Inbox (or the mailbox of your choice.) However, if you have turned on the option to play Mail's New Mail sound then that sound will also be played. BTW, the New Mail sound is the only Mail sound you can change in Mail's preferences.

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Answer 4

andyBall_uk

Level 7

20,516 points

Mar 18, 2008 1:43 PM in response to Kappy

Hi

testing with Mail 2.1 on os x 10.4.10....

you could write a rule the plays your own custom sound each time a new message is received, but >then if you got 10 messages you'd hear the sound 10 times rather than once.

I found that the custom sound played just once, right before the chosen sound for new mail. this was with a rule of If sender = xxx, play sound, and sending several messages at once.

soooo, I guess Trevor could achieve what he wants,

but only by setting the 'new mail' sound to 'none' ; then adding a rule at the top of the list which identifies the messages required to be silent...the action being either some unimportant color change, since there has to be an action.... or more neatly, play a custom sound ( which happens to be silent...) Then add a 'stop evaluating rules' action. So far so good, the silent mail makes no sound. edit - you could have two color change actions back to back, so no actual change seen, also.

Now a rule just after that one, condition = 'every message', action = play 'new mail sound'

then on with any other rules Trevor has.

A silent, or any other custom alert can be added to the list by modifying an aiff file in QT pro, or audacity or similar, then placing it in Home/Library/Sounds/ it can then be added via the 'add/remove' option in the Rules-Play sound selection drop-down.

Trevor - dunno if 10.4.11 will work the same - but worth a try?

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Answer 5

Trevor C Author

Level 1

106 points

Mar 18, 2008 4:47 PM in response to Trevor C

Andy,

Thanks - I'd wonderered about something like that, but couldn't work out how to do it. I've just tried it and although it works, there's an unfortunate side effect: it now plays my chosen new mail sound every time I send an email, too.

Can I restrict a rule to be evaluated only on incoming mail rather than outgoing?

Trevor

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Answer 6

andyBall_uk

Level 7

20,516 points

Mar 19, 2008 2:02 AM in response to Trevor C

Hi Trevor

it depends on what your rule conditions are I s'pose....can you give an idea of what you need to do?

unless it's a bug, it must be that the conditions you've set are being met on sent mail too... I didn't get the sound on sending unless the Rule Condition matched.

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Answer 7

Trevor C Author

Level 1

106 points

Mar 19, 2008 2:36 AM in response to andyBall_uk

Okay, Andy, let me try to explain.

I have both an iMac and an iBook, and I use the same email account on both. I want the iMac to contain a complete archive of sent and recieved email. Recieved is easy - I simply set the iBook not to remove emails from the server.

To get the email sent from iBook to appear in iMac's sent mail folder, I've told the iBook to automatically Bcc all mail to a dedicated address on my own domain (archive@xxxxxx.com) using a terminal command I got from another thread on here. (See my earlier question here: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1444967&tstart=0)

That means the email will soon turn up in both inboxes unless I do something about it. On the iMac I want it moved to sent mail, so I've set a rule on the iMac that recognises these emails (if Envelope-To contains xxxxxx.com then move to sent mail). This works fine, but I don't want it to play the new mail sound. On the iBook I don't really need to see it at all, so the rule is set to delete the message on the same criteria.)

Is this making sense so far?

Anyway, I set the preference on the iBook to play no sound, then set the rule to delete these emails (then stop evaluating rules). The next rule is "any message - play sound".

The result was that when I sent from the iBook I seemed to get the sound set by that rule immediately followed by the normal sent mail "whooosh".

Love it if you could help, but it isn't that important in the great scheme of things!

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Answer 8

Mar 20, 2008 10:27 PM in response to Trevor C

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I figured out how to do this.

1) In prefs, set new mail sound to NONE
2) create a rule called "new mail sound if not a rule" or something like that. For that rule, set conditions to ANY and select EVERY MESSAGE. For action select PLAY SOUND - GLASS (or whatever sound you want for new mail).
3) revise all your current rules so that if you do NOT want notification, add "STOP EVALUATING RULES" to the end of it.
4) move the "new mail sound if not a rule" rule below all the rules where you don't want to be notified and ABOVE the rules you DO want to be notified.

I just set this up. It works so far. It doesn't not make sounds when it sends mail, and it does when I get regular mail, but not when it goes into certain folders.

Let me know how this works for you guys.
Bill

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Answer 9

Trevor C Author

Level 1

106 points

Mar 21, 2008 3:24 PM in response to BillHooper

Bill,

Thanks. I think what you've said pretty well summarises the advice so far, and I think that's pretty much what I've tried, but I may have set it up wrong, so will try again.

I'm away from my Macs now for a few days over Easter, though, so can't set it up until next week some time. I'll let you know.

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Answer 10

Mar 22, 2008 12:57 AM in response to Trevor C

I wonder if it has something to do with the terminal command. Try turning that off and then sending an email to that archive@xxxxxx.com account.

As you probably know, there's a Mail pref where you can have emails BCC'd to yourself, but I'm guessing you can't control which email to send them to, and maybe for storage reasons you want them sent elsewhere.

Also have you tried turning off 'play sounds for other mail actions'? Just a thought.

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Answer 11

Trevor C Author

Level 1

106 points

Mar 26, 2008 9:01 AM in response to BillHooper

Bill, and Andy also,

Many thanks, between you you've got me sorted - it's now working just as I'd like it too.

Trevor

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Answer 12

Mar 26, 2008 11:30 AM in response to Trevor C

Cool, glad you figured it out! This would all be easier if Mail included a "play no sound" option in their rules.

Hopefully in the next release...

Bill

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