email sound notification not working

By Alicia Krage, 9 April, 2025

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

Hopefully someone can help me out with this.

I recently changed the sound notification for a new email on my mac. A day or so later I changed it back, and since then, I haven't been getting any notifications. Does anyone know how to fix this?

Thanks so much!

Options

Comments

By Brian on Wednesday, April 9, 2025 - 15:09

Hi Alicia,

Have you tried looking at notifications, and checking to see if notification sounds are checked for mail on your Mac? It’s a longshot, but I figured it’s worth peeking at.

HTH.

By Alicia Krage on Wednesday, April 9, 2025 - 15:09

I did not, but I can. Although when I open up the laptop when it's been on sleep mode, it works fine.

By Brian on Wednesday, April 9, 2025 - 17:09

And just because somebody has to ask, you’re sure your laptop is not in do not disturb mode at any point?

By Alicia Krage on Wednesday, April 9, 2025 - 17:09

I checked, haha. It's off.

I did check notifications. Alerts wasn't the notification style that was selected. I changed it to alerts, we'll see if that does anything. So far it hasn't.

I didn't know making minor changes would break this.

By Ann Marie B on Wednesday, April 9, 2025 - 20:09

Hi. I don't know if it's the same on the Mac as on IOS but you can customize mail notifications for seperate accounts. Under notifications, mail, customize notifications, you can set different alerts for notification sounds for different accounts on iOS. It could be the same way on mac. Go to settings, notifications, mail, choose an account and there are options to choose different alert sounds for each account. Hth.:)

By João Santos on Wednesday, April 9, 2025 - 21:09

I think that the incoming mail notification event sound for the built-in Mail application is broken in 15.4. I've been experience something similar to what you describe ever since I updated my Macs, though it hasn't been bothering me much since I still get the alerts on iOS, and as a macOS VoiceOver user, I'm quite accustomed to things being generally broken. Maybe they'll address it next version, maybe not, or maybe they'll come up with an innovative way of breaking something else.

By Alicia Krage on Wednesday, April 9, 2025 - 21:09

This is very likely, as I had changed the sound back to default before updating, then did the update. I get notified on my phone as well, it's still just a little annoying.

By Brian on Wednesday, April 9, 2025 - 22:09

If Mac Mail is anything like iOS Mail these days, you may have to go back into notifications, and change it from primary inboxes, to all inboxes. I know at least on iOS this is an option now, and if you don’t change it, you’ll only get Alerts for Emails that pertain to a primary inbox.

HTH.

By Alicia Krage on Thursday, April 10, 2025 - 15:09

I did change it and it seems to work. That's so interesting, I just left it alone since that was the default setting so I didn't think it matters. Maybe it does now.

By Brian on Thursday, April 10, 2025 - 16:09

Glad it’s working for you now. :-)

By Bruce Harrell on Thursday, April 10, 2025 - 19:09

I'm using 18.2 on my 15 pro. Message tones are now inconsistent. Sometimes new messages play a tone; sometimes they don't. I haven't found a solution. Funny thing is, I've been using 18.2 for quite a while now. Odd that message tones would suddenly change behavior.

By Brian on Thursday, April 10, 2025 - 20:09

If you would please, go to settings, notifications. Check out your settings for Messages.
You may or may not have done this already, but humor me. Check out the following, and ensure these are enabled:
Always deliver immediately heading
• critical alerts
• Time sensitive notifications

Alerts heading
• Allow on lock screen
• Allow a notification center
• Allow as banner

Lock screen appearance heading
• show previews: always

At the very bottom, is a customized notifications button, tap on that, and then enable the following:
• Unknown senders

Receive as critical alerts heading
• Emergency contact Alerts

With all of those enabled, try texting yourself, or have a friend text you, and see if you are getting the Alerts. One more thing I would recommend you try, is going into settings, sounds of haptics, and setting your messages ringtone as a default Note Alert tone.
You can of course always change all these settings later, this is just to attempt to set your messages notifications back to their defaults, for troubleshooting purposes.

HTH.

By Bruce Harrell on Friday, April 11, 2025 - 21:09

Thanks buddy. I appreciate the effort you took. All already done. I've also alread explored do not disturb since the message alert tones do sound aloud part of the time, but no joy. Still digging.

By Roland on Saturday, April 12, 2025 - 20:24

Hi Alicia,
I can confirm this bug on Sequoia 15.4, Mac Mini 2018, German Locale.