Add custom sound for MacBook Pro Apple Mail New Mail alert

[brinkeguthrie]

I made an MP3 sound, renamed it to NAME.aiff, and dragged it into the SOUNDS folder where all the other sounds are---and it won't let me drag it in there. Why not?

Also; I'd like to be able to use the same email sound for iPad, MacBook Mail, and iPhone. Can I do that?

 

[kitKAC]

Custom sounds should go into this folder:

~/Library/Sounds

.aiff files are uncompressed audio, so renaming the file probably won't work. Export it into the correct format. To use the sounds on your iDevices, you can use Garageband for that.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208899

 

[Big Bad D]

I made an MP3 sound, renamed it to NAME.aiff, and dragged it into the SOUNDS folder where all the other sounds are---and it won't let me drag it in there. Why not?

Also; I'd like to be able to use the same email sound for iPad, MacBook Mail, and iPhone. Can I do that?

You can’t just rename a file suffix and expect it to be in the name format.

 

[allan.nyholm]

You can use m4a audio too. Just place the .m4a in the ~/Library/Sounds folder like mentioned and select it from within Mail

QuickTime Player on Monterey and probably Big Sur and Ventura can Export as Audio and that will give you an m4a file.

Connect your iPhone to your Mac via a cable.. unlock the iPhone so that the Mac can see it and interact with it from the Finder.

Next you find your .m4a file and hold Option while dragging the file over the mail iPhone view in Finder (no need to go anywhere but the overview page where you can check for updates and such) that will copy it to the phone and you can then select it as a sound for Mail on iOS as well.

Examples on an m4a file being seen by Mail on macOS Monterey:

 

[allan.nyholm]

I'd like to add that you can experiment with renaming your m4a file to m4r and then add it via the iPhone interface in Finder. See if that allows you do add it to Mail if the usual m4a file doesn't

You'd have a cool ringtone available to you if nothing else. I think I'll make people crazy by adding the old dial-up connection sound as an SMS or call ringtone

 

[LV426]

It's quite annoying that I can choose "Circles" as a received email sound on my iPhone and iPad, but the tone is not available in macOS.