Chirpy

Chirpy assigns custom notification sounds to your Mac notifications. Instead of the same generic ping for every message, you create rules that match a channel, person, keyword, or app to any sound you want. When a notification arrives, Chirpy plays the sound you chose, so you hear what matters without checking your screen.

As of version 3.0, any app that sends notifications to macOS Notification Center: Slack, Teams, Discord, your browser, Calendar, Mail, Gmail, GitHub, Linear, and hundreds more. If you can see the notification on your Mac, you can give it a custom sound.

Yes, as of version 3.3. Turn it on in Preferences → Advanced, then edit any rule and choose Run a Shortcut instead of Play a sound. Shortcuts on Mac has no trigger of its own for an incoming notification, so this gives it one: Chirpy matches the notification, and your Shortcut runs.

Chirpy runs on macOS 13 (Ventura) or later, on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs. It requires accessibility permissions to detect notifications, but it never reads your messages or accesses personal data. It's a lightweight 5.8 MB native app that runs quietly in your menu bar.

Drag the app into your Applications folder. When you open it, grant accessibility access so Chirpy can read your notifications. That happens locally; nothing leaves your Mac. Then create a rule: pick an app, add a keyword or condition, choose a sound, and you're set. Setup takes about two minutes.

No. Chirpy matches against notification text as it appears on your Mac, entirely locally. Nothing is sent to a server. Your message content stays completely private.

Not at all. Chirpy is a native macOS app of 5.8 MB, designed to run quietly in your menu bar using minimal CPU and memory.

Slack lets you choose notification sounds by type (messages, huddles, DMs), but it doesn't offer per-channel sounds natively. Chirpy adds per-channel, per-person, and per-keyword sound rules on macOS, so #prod-alert can sound different from #random.

Teams offers some sound controls, but custom sounds are currently only available on Teams for Windows and web, so Mac options are more limited. Chirpy fills this gap by letting you assign distinct sounds to Teams notifications based on channel, person, or keyword.

Yes. You can create rules based on any text in a notification: channel names, people's names, app names, or specific keywords. Rules combine with AND/OR and support wildcards, so #prod-* matches every production channel at once.