Create audible alerts for Mail.app

Sep 23, '02 09:06:51AM

Contributed by: dunno

After leaving Eudora behind for Mail.app, I keep finding features I miss -- in this case, Eudora's ability to read the "From:" header as mail comes in. I had it set in some filters to give me an audio heads-up when certain folks sent mail.

As far as I can tell, this isn't available in Mail.app, but a workaround is possible using AppleScript using the basic text-to-speech script.

  1. Make the sound file in AppleScript:
    on run
    set theText to "You've got mail from yo momma."
    say theText using "Victoria" saving to "YoMomma.aiff"
    end run
    Save and run this AppleScript to create the sound file.

  2. Put the resulting file in ~/Library/Sounds.

  3. In Mail -> Preferences -> Rules, Add or Edit the Rule you wish to add the sound to.

  4. Add an Action of "Play Sound," and select "Add/Remove" at the bottom of the list. Your new sound sound shows up. Highlight it and click "Done."
That's it! You should now get a nice audio indication when mail matching your rule criteria arrives!

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