Tired of Mail’s discreet new mail sound and thirsting for something more exotic? Got work colleagues that you want to drive crazy?

A collection of 38 various “You’ve got mail” audio files could be just the thing.

It includes soundbites from the delightfully husky Scully (“Have you checked your email this morning, Mulder?”), Bugs Bunny, Homer Simpson, a nerd, Ausin Powers, the Adams Family and more.

Changing the sound Mail makes when new mail arrives is easy.

Save the audio file you want from the collection or find one of your own and put it somewhere memorable.

Open up the General pane of Mail.app’s Preferences and select the drop-down menu for “New Mail Sound”:

The “Add / Remove…” option allows you to navigate to the audio file want. Click “Add”, find your file and Mail will copy it into your ~/Library/Sounds folder and add it as an option to the drop-down menu.mail.app, apple mail, new mail alert, sound files, audio notification, wav, scully

A poster on macOSXHints offers a way to increase the relative volume of Mail.app’s new mail sound.

It is complicated. The tip involves digging around in Mail’s package, extracting the audio files, adjusting their volume in an audio editing app and then replacing them.

Rob Griffiths (macOSXHints editor) recommends the freeware Audacity for the editing; the original poster favours Peak (shareware — USD 599. Eeek! Lite edition only USD 129).

mail.app, apple mail, tips, hacks, alerts, sound files