Can sounds be played randomly?

Question

Hi All,
Is there a way to play sounds randomly when mail arrives, versus choosing only one sound? I have a bunch of hilarious alerts.
Thanks,
Dave

Answer 1

Not in Mail. Mail only plays one user-selected sound - the new mail sound. Mail only has three other sounds and they are embedded in the Mail application's Resources folder. You can physically replace these four sounds: New Mail, No Mail, Mail Sent, and Mail Fetch Error. They are all .aiff sound files. You can substitute your own four sounds by renaming them to the same names used in Mail, but you cannot have random sounds played.
Use whatever four sound files you want to be, respectively, New Mail.aiff, No Mail.aiff, Mail Sent.aiff, and Mail Fetch Error.aiff. Quit Mail if it's open. Select the Mail application and right-Click or CTRL-Click to display the contextual menu. Select "Show Package Contents" from the contextual menu. A window will open with q single folder named "Contents." Double-click to open Contents, then locate the folder named "Resources." Copy your custom sound files into the Resources folder. A dialog will appear asking if you want to Replace the existing files. Answer Replace to each. Close the window. Mail will now use your custom sounds in place of the default ones.
Note that if Mail is updated by any future system upgrade your custom sounds will be replaced by the originals, and you'll have to customize all over again. So don't lose your custom sound files.