How to add new alert sounds to Sound Effects in Sys. Prefs

If I'm not wrong, you have to manually put the sounds into a folder located in Library.

First you need to convert the mp3 file to aif, with an extension of .aiff, you can do the conversion in iTunes. Then you need to add the file to the System Library's Sounds folde. Thus, I if I had a one second mp3 file of harp chord, I would first convert to an aif file, then make sure the name was "Harp.aiff" and then drag into the Sounds folder. Since the folder belongs to system, and not to you, you will have to do this from an admin account. You will be asked for your admin name and password to authenticate. You will then end up with something like this:

"/System/Library/Sounds/Harp.aiff"

When you open System Prefs->Sounds->Sound Effects you will see your new alert sound.
Francine


Francine
Schwieder

Afraid I don't know what is going on! If you go to the actual folder where you put your sound:

/System/Library/Sounds/Harp.aiff

and preview it there, does it play correctly? If so, I don't know what is wrong when you try to play it in the Sound Effects pane of System Preferences. There is a plist file for sound effects here:

/Users/yourname/Library/Preferences/com.apple.systemsound.plist

Although that shouldn't have any effect on the ability to preview the sound. You could try deleting the plist, then restart and return to the Sound Effects pane and try resetting it again. I have noticed that mine defaulted to playing thru internal speaker all on its own, instead of the external USB speakers that it should have been using, and that I had to reset it before my new sound would play.
Francine


Francine
Schwieder

Hi Craig, if it isn't playing in the actual folder then something went wrong in your conversion. Exactly how did you do the conversion? And how did you get it out of iTunes (if that is what you used for the conversion) to use it as a sound effect?

I have a one second piano chord in mp3 stashed away in a sound collection folder. I double click it and it opens in iTunes. I then go to iTunes Preferences, click on Advanced, then click the Importing tab, and change "Import Using" to "AIFF Encoder" (my default is MP3 Encoder) and click the OK button. Go back to the regular iTunes window and select your mp3 file, then go up to the Advanced menu and select "Convert Selection to AIFF"--it should convert it very quickly. Grab the new aif file and drag out of iTunes window onto the Desktop. Do GetInfo on it and change the extension to .aiff (iTunes exports it plain name.aif). While you are in GetInfo verify that it plays in the Preview section. Now add it to the /System/Library/Sounds folder. Oh, and remove the one that doesn't work. You'll have to authenticate to do that too.
Francine


Francine
Schwieder

You're welcome, glad it's sorted out! And I finally got around to adding a few alternate alert sounds to my collection too. I was getting a bit bored with the defaults....
Francine


Francine
Schwieder