Level: Intermediate

Nathan Harrington (harrington.nathan@gmail.com), Programmer, IBM

23 Jan 2007

"You've got mail" is so 20th century. Use Perl and Sound eXchange (SoX) to play sound files on your Linux® or Windows® computer based on the content of incoming e-mail messages. Your system can compose and blend certain sounds to give you a heads-up on the who, what, and why of your in-box content.

Developers have long made advancements in visual notifications of arriving e-mail. Today, we see everything from simple icons changing color and shape to pop-up notifications to detailed summaries from sliding windows. Developers have not spent as much effort making sound notifications deliver anything beyond the recorded AOL voice effusing, "You've got mail." In the open source world, the best to hope for is your computer tooting different sound files based on the account or storage area where your e-mail landed.

This article shows how to create and play back custom sound files based on the content of incoming e-mail messages. SoX -- the Swiss Army knife of sound processing programs -- and simple keyword matching will be used to create custom sound files played back upon receipt of e-mail. No more simple ding to indicate the arrival of an e-mail regardless of recipient, sender, or subject. You can now hear a ding-bang-whoosh signifying an e-mail from your manager, or a bell-squawk-chirp to let you know your bank statement is available.

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