Change default alarm sound in iCal
iMac Intel Core 2 Duo 3.06GHz, Mac OS X (10.6.5)
iMac Intel Core 2 Duo 3.06GHz, Mac OS X (10.6.5)
I struggled with this for days. For me, the problem was that I REALLY didn't want to change the sound for all alerts because Basso is fine for basic system alerts. I just wanted to change it for the Calendar alerts and not for everything. Apparently some things that used to work, do not work on Sierra, but this did.
cp ~/Downloads/Alarm.aiff ~/Library/Sounds
defaults write com.apple.iCal 'Default alarm sound' 'Alarm'
Open iCal, new default alarms should now use that sound.
This worked for me and now I have a different alarm sound Only for iCal. If I could change the location of the notification alerts to the middle of the screen (again, for iCal only), I would be even happier.
Where exactly is the "com.apple.iCal.plist file in BBEdit (which recognized amd preserved the XML format"? I also have OS 10.6.7 but could not find that file (or directory or whatever) using the Finder search funtion. I also hunted around for it, but couldn't find it that way either.
Thanks,
Dan
The file com.apple.iCal.plist is in /Users/<YOURUSERNAME>/Library/Preferences/ . Putting it another way, it is in your User's Library > Preferences folder.
Best wishes
John M
Thanks.... But ugh.... How do I make the file appear legible? The way VNDL42 did a few posts up. His com.apple.iCal.plist file looks like a user-friendly menu of options. Mine looks like what I cut/pasted below. Garbledy gook. (By the way, is that normal, or has my file been corrupted or something like that?) Is this because he opened it in "BBEdit"? If so, how do I do that? I don't know what BBEdit is and with right-clicking the option didn't seem to come up.
?
Thanks.
!"#$%&'()*+,-./01234567:;<CDE22HHJK2PQRSTU2i2klH2opHrJs2Hvwx_ qNSWindow Frame 2228038A-D18F-4B97-ADE6-2E177C9817A9/local_916DED51-8E32-49CF-A07E-00E5F28C646F /-/20110619T120000Z_ bNSWindow Frame 2228038A-D18F-4B97-
See here for BBEdit, however you don't need to be editing the plist file using an advanced text editor to do this.
The terminal has a defaults command that allows to to do this without messing around your preference files with a text editor (to my mind a sure recipe for disaster if you don't know what you are doing).
defaults write com.apple.iCal 'Default alarm sound' 'Tink'
Open iCal, new default alarms should now use that sound.
Best wishes
John M
com.apple.iCal.plist doesn't appear to exist in the Preferences directory in Lion. Have you any idea where this file may be, if at all?
Hi,
Look in /Users/YOURUSER/Library/Preferences/ for the com.apple.iCal.plist file.
John M
John,
The file doesn't exist in that location, hence my query. All my calendars on my Macbook (the device on which I'm wishing to make this change) were imported from another machine earlier this month, however I have been using iCal as normal since the import. Do you know of any reason why this file doesn't exist on my machine?
Mart
Hi Mart,
Perhaps you have not made changes in iCal that need to be saved to your defaults?
Did you try the instructions here: Re: Change default alarm sound in iCal
John M
John,
I have made several changes to the default settings in iCal Preferences, however the file doesn't exist. I tried the Terminal command but this hasn't worked either; I guess the command can't be altered if the file doesn't exist in the first place. I guess iCal defaults just are handled differently in Lion!
Mart
Change default alarm sound in iCal