Unbelievable - New Mail sound still not working in Snow Leopard

But Ernie, then why would it not ALERT when it completes the check for new mail since there is new mail at that point that had been pushed moments earlier-- it's still new mail? Also, my .mac account pushes and beeps every time... interesting.

Virgil,

If already pushed, it is not New Mail, but merely Unread mail.

Ernie

Well, if Microsoft can get Entourage to do it, I would think Apple can! 😉

I have Entourage 2008 setup on the same machine, IMAP to a different account. Microsoft doesn't use the term IDLE (they call it Live Sync), but it does the same thing. Keeps you connected so you get emails immediately.

Anyone Entourages sound and icon both work perfectly.

Plus.....if Apple can update the badge on the dock icon, what's different about having a sound?

-Kevin

I was running tiger prior to this and I had it retrieve mail every minute. Within those minutes, if I got a new .mac mail, it would come in pushed and beep. I have the same set up with SL. And with same results. Now why can't they do this for IMAP mail? They could. They could program MAIL to understand what is NEW unread mail since the last time it was refreshed.

Thank you Kevin-- your badge comment was spot on. I was writing paragraphs trying to describe my frustrations and you nailed it with that one observation.

Kevin,

Not saying it couldn't be done, but that it would not be in the same routine as checking for new mail, where it is now. I believe Entourage has less separation of accounts, does it not? Mail is going through each email account, one-by-one, and never alerting until all are done. I can't speak how it is implemented in Entourage.

Ernie

Not sure since I only have 1 account setup in each. Plus who knows what funky voodoo Microsoft is doing behind the scenes.

It's the badge icon that gets me. That shows up perfectly, even in IDLE. So whatever Apple is doing with the badge, they need to apply a sound to it as well.

If people really need the sound at this point, I'd turn off IDLE and switch to checking every 1 minute (that'll get you close to IDLE).

Anyway....here's hoping that it eventually gets fixed 🙂

-Kevin

Virgil,

Tiger's Mail did not support IDLE Command to my knowledge.

In Mail, with an IMAP account, the functionality of marking a message as Read or Unread resides on the server, and not in Mail, so that whatever computer or device a message is read on, it is then marked as Read.

I am not arguing for not having the alert, but only commenting on why it probably does not work in Mail.

Ernie

Yes, in tiger no IDLE. But my point was that .mac or .me mail ALERTS all the time anytime it comes in. I like what was said about the BADGE updating- so anytime that badge gets a new mail, maybe it should ALERT. I really appreciate you taking the time to comment on this thread. And I am satisfied with having it check every minute-- thanks for giving us all the solutions. I am just curious why it can't work 100% the way we would all like it.

Sitting here this morning drinking my coffee and suddenly I hear the familiar "ding" sound. I look down and sure enough....a new email message.

No idea WHY is played the sound.....but I haven't gotten it to play again since.

I'm convinced now that it is just a bug in Mail.app that Apple doesn't care about.

-Kevin

it worked the whole of yesterday! i was so happy i forgot all about my work... but today it stopped working again. but at least now i know it isn't broken! this is the first time i've ever heard the sound since i got my mac.

Maybe a solution: I unchecked 'include when automatically checking for new messages', and checked 'use IDLE command...', restarted Mail. Now I can hear the new mail sound again. Let's see how long it lasts...

Sadly this didn't work for me.

-Kevin

That's very erratic for me: sometimes I can hear the sound, sometimes not... I didn't have the problem with Leopard.

Same problem for me - sometimes the sound works, sometimes not.
When I first got my Macbook pro, in March this year, with Leopard, it always worked. Slowly it worked less frequently, and now mostly no sound. Same with SL. I have not changed the settings or added another account etc. etc.