How to set a custom notification sound in Slack

Step-by-step: change your Slack notification sound

Slack’s built-in sound settings live in one place. If you’re looking for a broader overview of custom Slack notification sounds, start there. Here’s how to change the sound on macOS.

1. Open the Slack desktop app on your Mac.
2. Click your profile photo in the top-right corner.
3. Select Preferences.
4. In the left sidebar, click Sound & appearance.
5. Under Notification sound, choose a sound for messages (Ding, Boing, Drop, Hummus, etc.).
6. Repeat for DMs and huddle invites if those options appear.
7. Close Preferences. Changes take effect immediately.

What you can’t do natively

The setting above applies globally. Every channel message uses the same sound. Every DM uses the same sound. There’s no way in Slack to say “play a sharp alert for #incidents and a soft chime for #general.”

This is the most-requested limitation users hit once they’ve set up their sounds. If you work across several high-traffic channels, a single sound quickly becomes background noise.

Per-channel sounds with Chirpy

Chirpy is a native macOS app that extends Slack’s notification sounds. After installing, you create rules like:

• “Play Tri-tone when a notification comes from #deployments.”
• “Play Glass when Sarah DMs me.”
• “Play Alarm when any message contains ‘outage.’”

Each rule maps a Slack source to a macOS sound or a custom audio file. Setup takes about 30 seconds per rule. Try Chirpy free.