I sometimes get the sound of outgoing mail when nothing was sent.

With all these 'little' problems creeping in to the Mac OS, one may wonder if Apple has dropped the ball. It's nice to have smart phones and iTV's and App Stores etc, but I think we'd all like to keep the Mac bullet proof and it's not so much anymore:

• Java update FAIL - flashback

• FileVault FAIL - plain view passwords

• Monitor attached sleep FAIL

• Mail sounds FAIL

• list goes on...... FAIL

Maybe addressing some of these issues quickly and not letting them drag on might go towards rebuilding our trust in core Mac products, because mine is wavering. I pay top dollar for my (lots of) Mac hardware, precisely so I dont get those 'pc issues'. But I am getting them........

I know you read this Apple, we've given you a lot of money over the years, so come on, tidy this stuff up and prove that you've not forgotten where your 'core' is.

I had the same hunch that mr pixelaté had. My MacBook Air (running Lion) isn't making sounds on sending mail, even though it is supposed to be doing so. Every once in a while, when it wakes up, it plays a serious of whooshes and (I think) the new message sound. Not using iCal so, IMO, that's a red herring.

I'd also independently developed the theory that mail sounds are being queued. Very occasionally I'll do something like waking my iMac up and a load of consecutive 'mail sent' sounds get played out. Almost always though when I send an email there's no 'mail sent' sound. This has been the case for so long I can't remember. It's really annoying though so was hoping for some answers - so far only found this thread with other people with the problem. I also don't use iCal (because it doesn't seem to know what the word 'sync' means...).

iMac 3.06 GHz Core 2 Duo running 10.7.4.

Hi!

I have contributed to this discussion before, but today something happened that may add a clue. I had been working with my Macbook Pro closed using an external monitor and bluetooth keyboard and trackpad. I discovered that Time Machine was not backing up. I guessed that this could be because one of my USB ports is a bit quirky and sometimes does not work. So I unplugged the Time Machine hard drive and plugged it into the other USB port. Time Machine activates and there goes the "whoosh, whoosh, ping, ping, whoosh, ping, etc" for a considerabe length of time.

I can not say that the sounds come only when I plug in the Time Machine hard drive, but it could very well be. So it may not be "starting" the computer that causes the sounds, but as many of us also plug in a Time Machine hard drive when we arrive to work and plug in devices when staring the computer.

Does this fit?

Johan

I also randomly get several swooshes, bings, and no sign of sent mail.

This has happend on 10.73 & 10.7.4

I do use iCal / Busy Cal but again, like others, no sign of sent mail.

I have to quit Mail to stop it.

I use my Mac / Mail 7 days a week and I'd say this happens on average every 2 weeks, yet its still sporadic.

No resolve on this yet anyone?

This happened to me for the first time today. I'm running 10.7.4 on a 2GHz Macbook Pro 15". I've used the machine for over a year but this is the first time it's occured.

I opened the machine and head the soun of multiple "new mail" pings and several "sent mail" wooshes.

What's new is that I have just bought a new Thunderbolt drive for Timemachine backup. Previously I used a firewire drive (which I still connect to the mac for other reasons). The sounds started at the time I was plugging in all the ports i.e. the ethernet, thundebolt, firewire -- but this was also the time the machine was waking up.

I can guarentte that most of you that have this issue have 1) an iPhone 2) a gmail account.

So what is actually happeneing is gmail on your phone has processed. You may in that time get 15 spam emails, you may have sent and recieved a few emails.

So all your Mail app is doing is getting your mail program syncing with IMAP. This means it will get the emails / been spam or whatever recive them, hence the bing or sent noise which is actually close to the deletion noise.

Trust me I have been getting uneasy about that too. But now having 7 google mail accounts it all makes sense.

Hope that helped.

No, that's not it. My wife (who has this problem) does not have a GMail account, much less a GMail/Mail connection. Also, your theory does not explain the lack of any outgoing mail sound when any message is sent from Mail. Also, I'd be surprised if the IMAP sync process causes any "email sent" sound to occur. If it does, I'd also consider that a bug.

Yeah Gmail or IMAP any email you have with these will do the same thing.

Wifi / Ethernet no change. It's when you have internet conection.

Notes about this:

1. I only hear it when my computer has been asleep.

2. I get it all the time when I switch from Home to Work wifi.

Let me see if I can figure it out if I am right, as it's bugged me for months now.

Perhaps there are two different issues that have similar symptoms?

This message is about the sound of outgoing mail when nothing is sent. The most critical common symptoms of this problem are: 1) The outgoing mail sound is not heard when mail is sent from within Mail; and 2) Multiple outgoing mail sounds are heard in rapid succession at a seemingly-random later date.

In my wife's case, it happened with a nearly-new Macbook Air, running Lion. The Air is the only device she uses to access her one POP-based email account. About two weeks ago, Mail starting playing the outgoing mail sound properly. Maybe it was an update? Or maybe it momentarily straightened out after a restart? Anyhow, for the time being, all is well.

I suggest you all to read the posts on the first page of that thread.

You will see that even when you change the outgoing mail sound from Whooosh to something ekse, the periodic Whooosh sound continues....

No Whoosh when you device is offline !!! When back to online, immediate whoosh and then, periodically again...

I'm having the same problems, well, sometimes. I haven't been able to find out under what circumstances this happens, I do know that it occurs sometimes when I wake my MacBook Air.

Just now it did the same thing, last time was already a couple of weeks ago. It keeps going until I actually do something (not even related to Mail itself). It's a very weird bug which I have no idea of why it'd happen.

Also note that my Mail application is broken in more ways. I can't search for text (in subjects, body's etc.) in any of my mailboxes, although I can search for senders and recipients (these problems occured since 10.7.2 I believe, although I never installed 10.7.1 and went from 10.7.0 directly to 10.7.2 with a Combo Update)

It's odd I have been installing CS6 last week. I had to do a permission replair and havn't heard it since.

I was getting this every day since then.

Don't worry about the combo update, it's good to run them as it makes sure everything is installed correctly. You should upgrade to 10.7.4.

I'm seeing this also, on Lion and Mountain Lion on my Macbook Pro.

The issue is:

1) Sometimes mail does not play the sent mail sound.

2) Connecting headphones triggers a flurry of sent mail/new mail sounds.

It seems that the sounds are queued up and connecting headphones makes the audio subsystem to flush them in succession.

Repair permissions/reinstall combo updades does not fix this. Upgrading to mountain lion also does not fixes this.

If you notice that mail is not playing the sent mail sound, try connecting headphones and see if you get the same behaviour I'm seeing.

I think we are getting closer here! You are right.

Generally when I get into work I plug everything in including my 3.5mm jack for speakers..

It was only when this was plugged in I would see this happeneing.. Interesting...