How to Use Slack Notification Sounds to Improve Team Problem-Solving in Remote Work
This one is for people whose setup is already broken. You configured custom notification sounds, something is wrong, and you want it fixed rather than explained. Run the five checks first. If the problem survives them, find your symptom below.
Run these five checks first
- Confirm the app has Accessibility permission. System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessibility. If the toggle is on but nothing works, switch it off and on again, then quit and reopen the app. Permission grants go stale after updates more often than they should.
- Set Slack's own notification sound to None. Slack Preferences > Notifications > Sound.
- Check macOS Focus. A Focus mode that suppresses Slack suppresses the notification, and no notification means nothing to read.
- Check rule order. The first matching rule wins.
- Check per-rule volume and the file format of any custom sound. Chirpy accepts .mp3, .wav and .caf.
Most broken setups turn out to be step one or step two.
Nothing is playing
No sound, but banners still appear
Likely cause: Accessibility permission missing or stale.
Fix: Check step one. If the permission looks correct, quit the app fully from the menu bar rather than closing its window, then relaunch. If you moved the app between folders or restored it from a backup, macOS treats it as a different binary and the old grant no longer applies. Remove the entry from the Accessibility list with the minus button, then add it again from Applications.
No banners either
Likely cause: macOS or Slack has stopped delivering notifications at all.
Fix: System Settings > Notifications > Slack. Alerts must be enabled and the style set to Banners or Alerts, not None. Then check Focus modes, including the automatic ones that trigger on screen sharing or on connecting a display. Screen sharing silences a lot of setups and people forget it is on.
The right rule matches but stays silent
Likely cause: that rule's volume is at or near zero.
Fix: Open the rule and check its volume. Per-rule volume is independent of system volume, so one rule can be muted while everything else on the machine is loud. Then check your output device. Audio routed to a Bluetooth headset that has gone to sleep plays into nothing.
A custom sound is silent or cut off
Likely cause: unsupported format, or a long silent lead-in.
Fix: Convert to .mp3, .wav or .caf. Trim leading silence, since a clip with 800 ms of nothing at the front reads as a failure. Keep the whole thing under about a second. Anything longer overlaps the next notification during a busy stretch.
It worked, then stopped after a macOS update
Likely cause: the update reset privacy permissions.
Fix: Re-grant Accessibility. Major macOS releases clear these regularly. Chirpy needs macOS 13 or later, so if you came from something older, confirm you are on a supported version too.
The wrong sound, or too many
Every message plays twice
Likely cause: Slack's built-in notification sound is still on alongside your rule.
Fix: Slack Preferences > Notifications, set Sound to None. Chirpy reads macOS notifications through the Accessibility API rather than talking to the Slack API, so it has no way to mute Slack for you. The two audio sources are independent and you have to silence one of them yourself. Slack also keeps separate sound settings for desktop notifications and for huddles, so check both.
The wrong sound plays
Likely cause: a broader rule sits above the one you expected to fire.
Fix: Reorder. A catch-all like "any Slack message" placed above "direct message from Priya" means the Priya rule never runs. Sort narrow to broad, top to bottom. Overlapping rules are fine; only the first plays, and that is intended.
Wildcards are not matching
Likely cause: the pattern does not cover what you think it covers.
Fix: #prod-* matches #prod-api and #prod-web but not #production. Test with a real message before trusting a pattern in a top-tier rule. Where a prefix is ambiguous, use two explicit conditions joined with OR instead of one clever wildcard.
Still stuck, or starting from scratch? Chirpy has step-by-step setup guides for Slack, Teams and general macOS notification behaviour, and the app comes with a 3-day free trial plus a 30-day money-back guarantee if it turns out not to fit.