My new macbook pro keeps chiming, making me so unhappy (sad face)

I can’t remember if I’ve posted about this already, but if I did I apologize for putting it in a new thread and asking again. I am new to OSX, but I am happy to be off the Microsoft stack. I am mostly pleased with everything about my laptop, but this chiming thing is driving me nutty.

I looked in the sounds control panel and the chime I’m hearing isn’t one of the default sounds.

I turned off all sound notifications in the notification center (everyone wants to make a sound!), and that has quieted things down immensely, but here is the problem: I will be working or reading or doing some activity that requires close concentration and suddenly my MacBook will chime. I look at the dock and nothing is jumping. No little red number alerts have changed. There is no indication what program or app is trying to get my attention, but my attention has been gotten. It’s just so maddening because I’m not sure how to figure it out. I looked in the little notification dealie that slides out from the right, but there is nothing new in there. It wouldn’t be so bad to get the occasional ding, if I could ascertain at a glance what the computer was trying to tell me. As it is, it’s just baffling and it reminds me that I’m an OSX newb.

What can I do to track this down?

record it with your iphone.

That’s real strange. Are you sure you don’t have a chat client on or something? I assume you’ve done the whole “shut off as many apps as possible” thing so you can eliminate possible problems?

My MBP is silent except IM, which makes a chime on the first new message…because I want it that way.

I wish I could help, but my MacBook pro never chimes. Well, I think it’ll ding once on reboot, but that’s it. I have the master sound on for listening to podcasts, but nothing else ever chimes.

You should be looking in the Notifications control panel, Tim.

Mail is the thing that comes to mind for me; you might even have a filter preventing the new mail count on the app icon from incrementing, but still hear the chime. Drives me batty until I get that setting changed on a new Mac. Settings -> Notifications -> Mail -> [ ] Play sound for notifications. Repeat for every suspect app, if needed.

Are you sure you unchecked the “play sound for notifications” in the Mail app? Settings -> Notifications -> Mail, bottom option. That’s the worst offender on my new setups.

I found and unchecked that one, but I thanks to you I think I found the problem. In Mail preferences > general there is a checkbox for “Play sounds for other mail actions” and it’s set to the “New Message Sound.” Let’s hope unchecking that one puts this to rest!

It doesn’t say what those other mail actions might be, but presumably it’s not for new messages, which I think is what the option in notifications is all about. It’s so crazy to give it the “new message sound” when it’s specifically set to do something else, but oh well. I am happy to have found it. :)

Thank you Michael!

Actually it’s not the option I said above, so strike that. The new message sound is a drop down box and you have to set it to None. As I posted above, I got a new message and it made the noise. Sheesh!

Let’s hope this works!

I feel incredibly stupid. I may have to use REI’s suggestion next. I’ll do a YouTube!

No reason to feel stupid, it can take some time to learn your way around a new platform.

I am new to the Mac ecosystem as well and there are more that a few things that annoy me, despite on the whole enjoying the change so far. Google is your friend, so far a lot of what has irked me can be solved or worked around in some way, just a matter of learning where the configuration is or how new hot keys work.

Now, if Office for Mac 2015 proves to not be the pile dogshit that 2011 is, I’ll be a happy chappy indeed.

It’s not by chance yelling at you when the hour changes?

That’s a good thought. I think I just got fouled up by not checking the preferences for mail, but just looking in the notifications control panel. If that doesn’t work, I’ll look at the clock. Thank you!

It’s so true about moving to a new platform (or any new tech). I have to be more patient with myself. It always takes time.

I’m hoping the Outlook experience is a little better, too. Fingers crossed.