Why is my notification sound the same for all apps?

How macOS handles notification sounds

macOS has a single system alert sound that most apps use when they send a notification. You can change it in System Settings → Sound → Alert sound, but the change applies to every app that relies on the system sound. There’s no way to assign a different alert sound to Mail, Messages, Reminders, or any other app individually.

This means that when you hear a notification, you have no idea which app sent it without looking at your screen.

What about per-app notification settings?

macOS does offer per-app notification controls in System Settings → Notifications. For each app, you can toggle:

• Whether the app can send notifications at all
• Whether notifications appear as banners or alerts
• Whether the app is allowed to play a sound for notifications

That last toggle is the key limitation: you can turn an app’s notification sound on or off, but you can’t choose which sound it plays. Every app with sound enabled uses the same system alert.

Some apps bring their own sounds

A handful of apps — Slack, Microsoft Teams, Discord — bypass the system alert and play their own built-in notification sounds. This helps you distinguish those apps from the rest of macOS, but it introduces a different problem: every notification within that app sounds the same. A message from your manager in Slack sounds identical to a bot posting in #random.

Where Chirpy fits in

Chirpy lets you assign different notification sounds to Slack and Microsoft Teams notifications on macOS — based on the channel, person, or keyword. Instead of hearing the same sound for everything, you can tell who or what pinged you before you look at your screen.