No Mail Audio Notifications

I was using the BigSur beta and thought it was a bug that there were no audio notifications in Mail. But I recently wiped my system and reinstalled the latest version (not beta) of Big Sur and I still don't have any audio notifications. It this a bug? It's sort of annoying not to be able to get any sound when an email comes in. I get the outgoing mail sound sounds, but no incoming. It looks like no matter what you have notifications set to for mail, nothing is being displayed.

MacBook Pro with Touch Bar

Posted on Dec 15, 2020 10:31 AM

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Posted on May 25, 2021 1:48 AM

Same problem on my Macbook Pro M1 received yesterday and updated to 11.4. No banner and no sound even if notifications settings are correctly set from preferences.

For now, the only workaround is to change notification style settings from "banners" (that do not work properly) to "alerts" and then switch off and turn on again the mail notifications.

Notifications work fine on other apps (the issue is located only in the Mail App).

Another possible solution is to use another app until new updates will be released.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

May 25, 2021 1:48 AM in response to Mozarti

Same problem on my Macbook Pro M1 received yesterday and updated to 11.4. No banner and no sound even if notifications settings are correctly set from preferences.

For now, the only workaround is to change notification style settings from "banners" (that do not work properly) to "alerts" and then switch off and turn on again the mail notifications.

Notifications work fine on other apps (the issue is located only in the Mail App).

Another possible solution is to use another app until new updates will be released.

Sep 3, 2021 7:06 AM in response to Mozarti

I had the same issue and wanted to give my solution to what fixed it. This may not fix everyone but wanted to get it out there. I fixed my issue by going to System Preferences->Sounds->Sound Effect Tab->Play sound effects through: <Dropdown> make sure "MacBook Pro Speakers" are selected. I had something else selected and not sure how it got changed. How it helps someone out there.

Dec 20, 2020 11:51 AM in response to Mozarti

Hello Mozarti,


This does seem like unexpected behavior, and we'd like to help continue narrowing down what could be causing this to happen:


  1. Please test for the same issue while in safe mode: How to use safe mode on your Mac
  2. Here's how to check for any hard drive errors: Repair a storage device in Disk Utility on Mac


If you need more help, we recommend reaching out to Apple Support here: Get Support


Have a good one!

Jul 16, 2021 12:55 PM in response to CMercantile

There have been multiple posts by people having lost the sound of outgoing mail in the Apple mail app on the MacBook Air with the new M1 chip. I too was one of those and have read every "solution" out there, with no success. TODAY, BY ACCIDENT, I DISCOVERED THE PROBLEM, AT LEAST ON MY COMPUTER! Why have none of you Apple gurus figured this out? There was a small icon in my top-of-screen menu with a half moon. It is for "do not disturb". I did not put it there, nor did I activate it. Somehow, it was turn on to "do not disturb". When I finally got rid of it by deactivating it and then removing it from the menu bar, my outgoing mail sound came back, loud and clear!!

Mar 3, 2021 3:12 AM in response to TonyOsb

Same as everyone else here.. I get every incoming notification via my iCloud email address. But our Exchange Email account does not repsond properly and we get 1 in 100 too.. It is very important for us as a business to hear incoming emails. We've just updated our old Mac running an old OS 10.8 or something.. that worked.. every email we received a sound notification..


It can't be that hard to fix this.. It's obviously a problem.. lots of people reporting this issue and giving up and using Outlook. That's not an option for us.. As Tony rightly says... Hey Apple - Help!!

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No Mail Audio Notifications

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