The Tips - Mac Kung Fu - page 107

Tip 102

Play Sounds When Certain Mail Arrives

Not all mails are equal, and sometimes you might want to be notified if a mail
arrives from a particular individual or if the subject line or mail body contains
a certain phrase (perhaps something like “The money has been wired to your
account”).

Setting up this feature in Mail is easy and can be done via mail rules, as
follows:

1. Open Mail's Preferences dialog box (application menu→Preferences), and

then select the Rules tab. Then click the Add Rule button.

2. A drop-down dialog box will appear. In the Description field, type a name

for your new rule; something like “Mail from John” is good. This is only
for your own reference later.

3. Below the line If Any of the Following Conditions Are Met, click the Any

Recipient drop-down list, and choose an option from the list. If you want
a sound to play when the mail is received from a certain person, click
From. If you want a sound to play when the mail contains a certain phrase
or word, select Message Content.

4. Leave the Contains drop-down list as it is, but in the text field next to

this, type either the email address of the recipient—if you've selected to
be alerted when mail arrives from them—or the word or phrase within
the email that you'd like to be alerted about.

5. Click the Move Message drop-down list directly beneath the Perform The

Following Actions heading, and select Play Sound. Note that you can also
select to do other things too, such as bounce the Mail icon in the Dock
(it will bounce until you click it).

6. In the drop-down list that appears, select one of the system sounds, or

click the Add/Remove entry at the bottom of the list. In the Sounds dialog
box that appears, click the Add button, and then navigate to what sound
file you'd like to use. Note that sound files can be downloaded from a
number of websites, and you can choose .MP3 files or .WAV files, although
be aware that once a sound has started playing, there's no way to stop
it, so selecting a four-minute MP3 tune might not be a great idea. Note