Create and add custom alert sounds to your Leopard system. 

To learn more about the history of Mac sounds check out our "Brief History of Mac System Sounds - Eep!"

Alert Sound Files - What format are they?

The Mac OS X alert sounds are AIFF (Audio Interchange file format) sound files that are usually of high quality and are less than a second long. You can create an alert that is longer, but remember, anytime you make a mistake, you're going to have to listen to it. So any file you create should adhere to these standards. 

Alert Sound Files - Where are they stored and how do you add more?

Mac OS X compiles a list of sound files that make up these alerts in the Sound panel of the System Preferences from several folder sources on your local hard disk:

System>Library>Sounds folder. This is folder contains the basic default set of alerts that ship with OS X Leopard. This folder is a System folder and it's not meant to be modified by your average user. That's you! Just know that it's here for future reference.

Home Folder>Library>Sounds folder. If you want to add your own system alert sounds then this is the place to put them. It's a free for all. Feel free to add as many AIFF files you want to this folder! Just don't fill up all that hard disk.

Library>Sounds folder. This folder does not exist by default, and in order to create it, you must have administrator privileges. This folder enables you to create system alert sounds that can be used by all user accounts. They show up in all the accounts list of alert sounds.

Once you have placed your new alert AIFFs into their designated folders, open the Sound pane in your System Preferences. 

Note: You may have to close and re-open the Sound Pane and/or System Preferences before these added sounds will show up in the list inside Sound Effects.

So know you know how to add your own system alert sounds from existing AIFF files. The next question is how do you create them from scratch?

Creating System Alert Sounds

Either choose a sound of your choice you want to edit and add to your system alerts, or create your own sound using either your Mac's internal mic or a third party mic.  

Generally, most new Macs ship with the most recent version of Apple's iLife suite of applications. Included in that suite is GarageBand. GarageBand is the perfect app for recording and editing new system alert sounds. If you don't have GarageBand, there are some great free and open-source audio editing apps available. 

Once GarageBand loads select Track>New Basic Track.

For an alert using your voice, click the record voice button and then being to speak your phrase into your Mac's internal Mic or USB microphone. Click the Stop Button to complete the recording.

For an alert created from a pre-existing sound, drag and drop said sound into the new track. Find the point in the sound where you want the alert to start. Place your mouse in the lower left-hand corner of the clip until you see the resize tool. Drag to your desired start point. do the same to the end of the clip once you establish a point where you want your alert to end. Now select the center of your clip and drag it to the beginning of the GarageBand timeline. 

Now let's check our work by playing the sound back. Press the Home key to rewind the sound recording to the beginning and then press the Space bar to play it. If the play back has no sound you might want to check your GarageBand settings by choosing GarageBand>Preferences>Audio/Midi.

Once sound recording is what you wanted it to be - choose Share>Send to iTunes in GarageBand. If you have GarageBand 2008 be prepared, you will be prompted for a file format of either MP3 or AAC. For older GarageBand versions, the recording just gets sent to iTunes with no options.

Of course, if you have been paying attention neither of these formats will work for system alert sounds so this last step is important.

Launch iTunes 8 and go to iTunes>Preferences>General>Import Settings button and choose the AIFF Encoder from the Import Using pop-up menu. Click Ok. Now go back to the iTunes list, find the name of your recording and then choose Advanced>Create AIFF Version.

Once it's converted, locate the new AIFF version of your new alert sound in iTunes 8 and drag it to the desktop. Finally, drag the AIFF file to System>Library>Sounds folder or Library>Sounds folder. Launch the System Preferences, check that your new alert is in there, and you're ready to go.

To learn more about the history of Mac sounds check out our "Brief History of Mac System Sounds - Eep!"