123

I have a script running in the background and sends me an alert every few minutes. I want the alert to be in the form of a beep.

Question: How can I play a beep in mac terminal?

Improve this question

6 Answers 6

Reset to default
207

printf \\a and osascript -e beep play the default alert sound, but they are silent if the alert volume is set to zero. printf \\a is also silent if an audible bell is disabled.

You could also use afplay or say:

afplay /System/Library/Sounds/Funk.aiff
say done

There are more sound effect files in /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/ScreenReader.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Sounds/.

Improve this answer
3
  • I was using say till now, afplay did the trick. Thanks! Commented May 22, 2013 at 22:19
  • 4
    Sweet! You can use say -v ? (in Yosemite, at least) to get a list of voices installed -- I had several! Here's a little script to say what you want in every available voice: for i in $(say -v \? | awk '{print $1;}'); do echo $i; say -v $i "Build terminated\!"; done Commented Jan 27, 2015 at 17:25
  • 2
    In macOS Catalina, I had to use say -v '?' with single quotes because of zsh. Commented Nov 12, 2020 at 1:51
27

The simplest way is the use a bell echo -e "\a"

Improve this answer
13
  • 2
    Didn't work for me. Do I need a package? Commented May 22, 2013 at 21:37
  • What version of OS X are you on? Also, check your terminal emulator's settings, and make sure you don't have bell disabled. Commented May 22, 2013 at 21:38
  • Ah! Terminal sounds were not enabled. Also, is there a decent bell/alert compared to the dull thud sound this command makes? Commented May 22, 2013 at 21:41
  • I use iTerm2 myself, which uses growl (so bells go to growl), via growl I add another sound to iTerm2 alerts. Yeah, kind of round-about. Commented May 22, 2013 at 21:45
  • Ohk, I will use that setup as a last resort ;) Commented May 22, 2013 at 21:50
12

Hear and pick

ls /System/Library/Sounds/ | awk '{print $1}' | while read sound; do printf "using $sound...\n"; afplay /System/Library/Sounds/$sound; sleep 0.5; done

ls /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/ScreenReader.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Sounds/ | awk '{print $1}' | while read sound; do printf "using $sound...\n"; afplay /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/ScreenReader.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Sounds/$sound; sleep 0.5; done
Improve this answer
1
  • 1
    Thank you! Very helpful to try out the different sounds Commented Feb 9, 2024 at 9:49
8

tput bel works in most shells.

From this answer on a related Stack Overflow question:

Improve this answer
7

Another way is to echo ^G. But you don't literally type the ^G. Instead, type ctrl+v, ctrl+g, which will appear as echo ^G.

Improve this answer
3
  • @tmanok On a mac? ctrl+G by itself does not do anything for me on a mac. Commented Feb 20, 2018 at 19:52
  • Oh? It does on Sierra and Yosemite for me.... Odd Commented Feb 21, 2018 at 6:33
  • But it isn't working on my 10.6 machine- maybe some of my CLI Tools or Homebrew is screwing with it. I'll retract my comment, apologies. Commented Feb 21, 2018 at 6:34
1

There's one more way that can be useful in cases like, let's say you forgot to set the alert and in the middle of the process, and on Iterm. Simply Cmd + Option + A while in terminal screen lets you have a notification in the end of the process.

Improve this answer
3
  • 1
    This doesn't answer the question. Commented Feb 3, 2022 at 9:56
  • I found this useful, why the downvotes? It really does add to the other answers. Commented Oct 30, 2022 at 23:19
  • Note this works in iTerm, but not in Terminal.app. At least in my testing. Commented Oct 8, 2024 at 10:51

You must log in to answer this question.

Start asking to get answers

Find the answer to your question by asking.

Ask question

Explore related questions

See similar questions with these tags.