I just posted this in response to a question in
the Forums, then realized that many users who could benefit from it might not see it in the Forums ... to stop Mail from sounding off at the arrival of new junk mail, do the following:
- In Preferences -> Accounts, set the new mail sound to none.
- In Preferences -> Rules, move the Junk Mail rule to the top of the list, and set the last action to be performed for this rule to "Stop evaluating rules."
- Add a new rule with the condition set to "Account" and selecting your account (you can add more than one condition for multiple accounts). Then, the action to be performed is to play the sound of your choosing. For multiple accounts, you can set up different sounds for each account simply by setting up separate rules for each account.
With this simple rule, you will no longer here "new mail" sounds when all you've received is yet more spam...