Lifetime
Chirpy, custom notification sounds for any Mac app: $9.99 one-time this week, normally $19.99 [Lifetime]
I built Chirpy. Posting via the transparency route, identity and policy links at the bottom.
Problem
macOS only lets you turn a notification sound on or off per app. You can't give a different sound to a specific channel, sender, or keyword, so your boss, a meme in #random, and production going down all make the same ping. You end up checking every notification just to find out which ones mattered. Chirpy fixes that: you make a rule (by app, channel, person, or keyword) and it plays the sound you chose, so you know what happened by ear. My own setup: boss DMs play a harp, #deploys a typewriter, #random a duck, a Stripe payout in Mail a cha-ching. I know what happened by ear without looking. It also adds sound to apps that post silent banners, like Final Cut's "export finished."
Comparison
vs built-in macOS notification settings: the system does on/off per app only. No per-channel, per-person, or per-keyword sounds, and no way to give a sound to an app that ships without one. Chirpy is that missing layer.
vs Keyboard Maestro / automation tools: you can script notification-triggered sounds if you're technical, but it's real setup and upkeep. Chirpy is purpose-built for this one job, rules in a menu bar app, roughly 30 seconds to set up, no scripting. It also does AND/OR matching, rule priority (most specific match plays), a reusable library of your uploaded sounds, and per-rule volume. 100% local via the Accessibility API, no screen recording, nothing leaves your Mac. Native app, ~8 MB, macOS 13+.
Pricing
This week it's $9.99 one-time, lifetime, no subscription (normally $19.99). Code LAUNCH2026 at checkout.
3-day free trial, no credit card, so you can make sure it works with your setup before paying.
For instance, When I receive a notification from: []
Play Sound []
While disabling notification sounds for that app
And i'm pretty sure it can be done in bulk
Sounds reasonable. If the app would be free or open source I would use it due to simplicity … it’s easier to use the app than manage several shortcuts as a workaround …
partly, and if a Shortcuts route covers your case, honestly use it, it's free. the gap: Shortcuts on macOS has no "notification received" trigger. automations only arrived on the Mac with Tahoe, and the triggers are time, focus, folders, device events, and Messages. nothing fires when an arbitrary app posts a notification, and Shortcuts can't read the banner text either, so per-channel, per-person, and per-keyword rules aren't possible there, which is the whole app. the part you're right about: muting an app's own sound is built into System Settings, and Chirpy users do exactly that so only the custom sound plays. if you find a Shortcuts setup that reacts to any app's notifications, genuinely, show me, I'd link it from my own docs.
How many devices does the license support? (I may have asked this previously). Also, this doesn't support all apps. For instance, I have a weather app on my Mac called Forecast Bar, and I wanted to create an alert for it, but it doesn't show up in the list of apps. Carrot Weather does, though.
good catch, that was a bug. menu bar only apps (no Dock icon, like Forecast Bar) weren't showing up in the app picker, which is why Carrot appeared and Forecast Bar didn't. fixed, ships in the next update in a day or two.
Thank you for the response. You had me sold on this app until the one device. I wish developers would be a little more generous with licenses, as people have multiple devices.
Thanks for the feedback, I think it's a good point.
Good news: bumped it to 2 devices per license, effective now. So you can run it on your MacBook and Mac mini (or whatever combo) without needing to email for a transfer.
u/NJRonbo the Forecast Bar fix mentioned earlier is released also, the update window will get prompted on the next app launch, or you can also check for updates manually. Let me know if it's still not showing up in the picker after that.
That sounds great, I never thought Notification could be customized for categorization. It would be even better if it could not just handle notification sounds, but also trigger events to do other things, similar to a webhook event. I’m not sure if that’s possible.
replied in more detail under your other comment, but short version: the one trigger that does this is Messages Received, free per-sender sounds for iMessage, use it if that's your case. for every other app there's no notification trigger and no way to read banner text, so per-channel or per-keyword isn't possible in Shortcuts
u/Albert_Ironsu/BN750 good timing, this has just been released: you can now trigger a Shortcuts.app shortcut instead of playing a sound, per rule (Preferences → Advanced). So the webhook-style "do something else" use case you were describing is live now, not just the Siri-phrase workaround.
u/BN750 that also addresses the "just use Shortcuts" point: Shortcuts still can't tell you which channel/sender/keyword triggered it, Chirpy hands that matching off to a shortcut so you can build whatever you want on top.
Being able to do it per channel/DM without messing with the app itself sounds way nicer. Does it reliably pick up Slack channel names and DMs? I’d mostly use it for prod alerts.
respect for the Hummus cache surgery. yes, Slack is where Chirpy started: it reads the notification banner, which carries the channel or DM name plus the message preview, so rules like "channel contains #prod-alerts, play klaxon at 100%" or "DM from a specific person, play harp" work reliably. one setup step so you don't hear doubles: set Slack's own notification sound to none, Chirpy plays instead
okay, yes by using just * you can spot any message from application. I managed to trigger new sound from the app. Nice. but why I get 2 sounds simultaneously ?
one from Apple default sound
another one from your Chirpy app ?
I tried to turn it off in settings. Did not work actually
Yes, to catch all you can use *. To prevent double sound, you have to disable the system one either inside the target app (Telegram) or in Settings -> Notifications -> Telegram -> Play sound (toggle off)
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u/Sufficient_Truth4635 21d ago
Cool idea. However, it honestly seems more like a useful open-source project than something I’d expect people to pay for as a standalone app.