Ventura - Permissions

[Jimmysb]

Many thanks all, I have my Alert sound in my new Sounds Library, and I have now changed my Mail Alert. It would seem that the alerts for Messenger are different, i.e. are ACC, however where do these go!

 

[Slydude]

There may not be a way to change those tones just yet if what I have found so far is any indication. After reading your last post here is what I have figured out from a bit of searching and a brief experiment.

1. As you discovered Messages does not read files in the your 0sounds folder and use them for alerts.
2. Messages does use the default iPhone ringtones as alert sounds. It doesn't recognize ringtones you create and add to the location that used to be used for storing custom ringtones.
3. It doesn't recognize sound files in .aif, AAC, or m4r (ringtone) format.
4. I thought I could find them by looking at the contents of the Messages app itself. This used to be a common place for resources in some apps. If the sounds are there they are well hidden.

MacMost hast a video on adding custom sounds and demonstrate it for system files and Mail essentially using the method that you used. as you've discovered that doesn't work with Message sounds. They suspect that the alerts for Messages and Reminders is handled through Notifications in macOS and I suspect they are right.

At this point they haven't found a workaround.

 

[pm-r]

Hi Jake, I want to add an alert sound, also I cannot find a Library in my user area, but thanks.

You might be better off just checking Apple's Support site that outlines how to add a system alert sound which seems to be pretty straight forward:
Change the alert sounds on Mac

Change the alert sounds on Mac

On your Mac, change the alert sounds and other sound effects using Sound settings.

support.apple.com

It seems to be a pretty straight forward and simple to manage method.



- Patrick
=======

 

[MacInWin]

You might be better off just checking Apple's Support site that outlines how to add a system alert sound which seems to be pretty straight forward:
Change the alert sounds on Mac

Change the alert sounds on Mac

On your Mac, change the alert sounds and other sound effects using Sound settings.

support.apple.com

It seems to be a pretty straight forward and simple to manage method.



- Patrick
=======

That is the same link I gave, and it just tells how to turn the alerts on or off, but not how to change them to what you might want.

 

[pm-r]

That is the same link I gave,

Oops, sorry Jake, and I guess I should have read through it a bit better.

Making system customisation is so much easier an earlier Mac OS versions such as the Mavericks 10.9.5 are used mainly. I also have several user Custom Sounds, even a very crass email one that gets old fast:
George Carlin "There's a letter in your mailbox"
tps://sounds4email.om/sounds/english-2.php (outdated link removed)




- Patrick
=======

 

[pm-r]

I have recently bought a Mac Mini, running Ventura 13.1. I wish to [add] a sound to the Sounds Library, and having read up I have converted the file to Aiff (and tested it), I have located the Library, but I cannot add it.

Just thinking about your problem, I was just wondering where or how you want to use the new system sound, or weather you want to use it in an application.

I know my Mac OS Mavericks 10.9.5 is nowhere near close to yourVentura 13.1, and I just thought I would let you know that my Custom Sounds are not in the user folder I thought they were. Here is a screenshot of where my custom user sounds that I use with my Apple Mail.app are actually found:



I'm just taking a wild and crazy think that maybe Apple might have reverted to an older method that you would be able to use much easier.
The Sounds folder in my user Library > Sounds is empty which is where I thought tey would normally go.

Anyway, as I said, just a crazy thought.

Good luck.



- Patrick
=======

 

[Slydude]

If you are adding system alerts or alerts to certain apps like Mail can be in the Sounds folder that we have been discussing. There is no real need to muck about with files in the path that you used. Though if that works as well then that's good to know.

As far as I can tell that's not where the Messages app stores alert sounds. I need to check there a little better. Everything I've seen suggests that Messages uses the Notification system which seems to store things differently.

 

[pm-r]

Everything I've seen suggests that Messages uses the Notification system which seems to store things differently.

There's some interesting information on the Apple discussion but I have no idea how similar it might be for Ventura users:
Messages sounds in macOS Mojave

Messages sounds in macOS Mojave - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

- Patrick
=======

 

[Jimmysb]

There's some interesting information on the Apple discussion but I have no idea how similar it might be for Ventura users:
Messages sounds in macOS Mojave

Messages sounds in macOS Mojave - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

- Patrick
=======

I read and followed the instruction, and the to folders are present, however as per my earlier posts these folders are protected, and I am unable to change them.

 

[pm-r]

however as per my earlier posts these folders are protected, and I am unable to change them.

I guess some Ventura 13.1 users need to find some other heavy duty method dogs changing the permissions or accessing those folders as it seems to have locked the user from doing any sort of system customisation other than what the head Mothership says.

And I guess this slightly older method no longer works:
Mac System Preferences and Customizing Your Mac

It seems like the fun times of customizing a users Mac are over, if one wants to use their most recent macOS Ventura 13.x., or look for more powerful methods to make any such changes. Not recommended for the average Mac user I would think.


EDIT:
BTW, I'm curious and just wondering why, but going on your experience why does Apple seem to state that making changes to permissions is such an easy process for a Mac administer to accomplish:
If you need permission to open an item on Mac (Ventura 13)

If you need permission to open an item on Mac

In the Finder on your Mac, you may be able to change the permissions setting to open the file or folder.

support.apple.com

Or am I missing or understanding something...???

More info with hits here:

Google Search

Sorry I can't help further.



- Patrick
=======

 

[pm-r]

If you are adding system alerts or alerts to certain apps like Mail can be in the Sounds folder that we have been discussing. There is no real need to muck about with files in the path that you used. Though if that works as well then that's good to know.

@Slydude
BTW and JFYI Sly, that file path I provided was provided by Apple back in the time I was modifying the sounds for my Apple Mail that I was setting up in MacOS X Mavericks 10.9.5, and I just followed the directions. No "mucking about" was involved at all.

Apparently that prevents mucking about with any System Library folder or its contents.



- Patrick
=======

 

[MacInWin]

I guess some Ventura 13.1 users need to find some other heavy duty method dogs changing the permissions or accessing those folders as it seems to have locked the user from doing any sort of system customisation other than what the head Mothership says.

And I guess this slightly older method no longer works:
Mac System Preferences and Customizing Your Mac

It seems like the fun times of customizing a users Mac are over, if one wants to use their most recent macOS Ventura 13.x., or look for more powerful methods to make any such changes. Not recommended for the average Mac user I would think.


EDIT:
BTW, I'm curious and just wondering why, but going on your experience why does Apple seem to state that making changes to permissions is such an easy process for a Mac administer to accomplish:
If you need permission to open an item on Mac (Ventura 13)

If you need permission to open an item on Mac

In the Finder on your Mac, you may be able to change the permissions setting to open the file or folder.

support.apple.com

Or am I missing or understanding something...???

More info with hits here:

Google Search

Sorry I can't help further.



- Patrick
=======

Patrick, the issue is not that permissions cannot be changed. They can. However, within the SYSTEM Volume, changes are NOT permitted. And the default sounds folder is in that Volume. Apple's rationale for that is that by locking (and encrypting) the SYSTEM files, malware is prohibited from getting established in the system. Trying to change the sounds in /Library is as useful as beating one's head on a wall. All pain, no gain.

There are ways to shut down all of the security that Apple has built in, but it is difficult to do and opens the system to all and every malware risk that exists. Plus, at the next update/upgrade, all of those locks will be reset, thus making any change made by disabling security temporary, at best. And if you turn security off, make a change, and then turn security back on, it will detect the change, warn you that the system is not safe and revert the SYSTEM volume back to its original state. At every boot, the hashtags of the SYSTEM image is compared to the hashtag it should be and if it's not correct, the boot image is replaced with a new image.

Application developers need to change where the sounds are stored to enable users to change them, if the developers want that to happen. Or make it possible to change through some Settings function. I seriously doubt Apple has any intention to do that, given that malware can be carried by sound files.

That said, Mail might allow sounds in the user Library to be used instead of the system Library, but at this point none of the old ways to make sounds change work. Ventura is very much a different beast than all the previous versions of macOS and OSX.

For the OP, it might be more fruitful to see if there is a third party app that allows configuration of sounds rather that beating this dead horse.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

I'm baffled as to what the problem is here. Adding custom sounds is easy easy easy as I pointed out earlier. It WORKS! Look... here's a screen cap of my Mail preferences. What I did was copy one of the sound files from the Sounds folder in the System library (Basso to be specific); added it to the Sounds folder in my user library; renamed it as "testing1-2-3". And.. well the screen cap speaks for itself.



Messages will do the same, and even better? It can use ringtones! And yes, I'm on Ventura.

EDIT: correction about Messages.... it doesn't see the ringtone added to my User Library. I have an idea... looking into it now.

 

[Slydude]

@Patrick Thanks for clarifying that point. I've always used the method of adding sounds to the user library file because it was easier to find and did not require a lot of permission modification. As LB pointed out, that method still works.

@Lifeisabeach I saw yesterday that iMessage can use ringtones. I tried that to see if you could create a custom ringtone and use that as an alert sound. I couldn't get iMessage to recognize the new sound but I might have done something wrong. I suspect that I might have added the file to the wrong folder.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

@Patrick Thanks for clarifying that point. I've always used the method of adding sounds to the user library file because it was easier to find and did not require a lot of permission modification. As LB pointed out, that method still works.

@Lifeisabeach I saw yesterday that iMessage can use ringtones. I tried that to see if you could create a custom ringtone and use that as an alert sound. I couldn't get iMessage to recognize the new sound but I might have done something wrong. I suspect that I might have added the file to the wrong folder.

Yeah, I'm at a dead-end with Messages. In fact, this actually taught me something new... the Music app no longer supports the .m4r ringtone format and there is no way to add custom ringtones to the music library for syncing to an iPhone (it may well never have since it replaced iTunes). There isn't even a category for them in the Finder window for syncing with iDevices. I know they ARE supported on the iPhone still... I have a whole bunch still in use. Apparently it's just a drag/drop operation now from what I've read up on. But otherwise, there's no obvious support for them from what I can see.

 

[MacInWin]

I'm on Ventura. I dropped a sound into the ~/Library/Sounds folder in Ventura. Gave it a weird name to make it easy to find it. Then opened the System Settings and under the "Sound" section I saw that the weird name was in the Alert Sound list. Then restarted Mail (this was a required step), and in the Mail Settings, under General, the new file appeared as an option for "New messages sound." However, I didn't see a place to change the alerts for any other Mail operation, like deleting a message. And Messages never saw it, even after a reboot. I don't think Messages is changeable directly.

So, what I said in post #2 is still valid. Put the sound in ~/Library/Sounds, and if that folder is not there, create it and put the sound file there. NOT /Library, but ~/Library.

It works. But it is limited to a system sound, and may or may not change the sounds in the apps.

The "dead horse" that is being beaten is the idea that you can change /Library in Ventura. You cannot.

You. Can. Not.

It's that simple.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Ah, I follow you now there, Jake. I didn't quite catch on that a different tone was desired for different actions in Mail. It has no feature to allow that. There is that box which can be checked to "play sounds for other actions", but it's a one for all preference.

What's really strange to me is how any obvious support for custom ringtones has disappeared. On my iPhone, I still have a ton of custom ringtones and I can set any of them to be my alerts sound for texts. I can also set a different sound for new mail vs sent mail. It's really weird that Apple is so inconsistent here.

 

[pm-r]

Ventura is very much a different beast than all the previous versions of macOS and OSX.

Thanks for your information Jake, even if it seems a bit understated.



- Patrick
=======

 

[MacInWin]

Thanks for your information Jake, even if it seems a bit understated.



- Patrick
=======

The key, Patrick, is that the older "how to" videos, articles, whatever, don't work in Ventura because of the changes. Unless the article says it works for Ventura, it probably won't. Apple really did tighten up the security on the system files with Ventura.

I am reminded of a Rolls-Royce owner who called the company because he couldn't not figure out how to open the "bonnet" of the car. He was told that if the bonnet needed opening, the technician at the Rolls-Royce dealership would do so for him. It wasn't a "user" feature.

 

[Slydude]

@MacInWin Your findings are consistent with what I noticed yesterday. The MacMost video I watched suggested that apps which use the notifications method of presenting alert sounds didn't make use of previous methods for adding custom sounds. They used the Reminders app as an example but suspected that the same was true for Messages.