[avc]

I hope this is the best forum to post questions related to Mail.app. Anyway, I have set up some rules to move incoming messages from mailing lists to separate folders. This is working well for me. But I don't want to be disturbed with a sound if all new messages that came in during the last check (I check for new mail every 10 minutes) were all from mailing lists. In other words, I want Mail to only play a sound if mail actually gets delivered to one of my 2 inboxes (one is IMAP and the other is POP3 if that matters).
Can this be done? If so, how?
Alfred

[lkalliance]

Yes, I think you can do this. Here's a way (and perhaps someone has a simpler method):
(1) Go to your Mail.app general preferences and turn off the sound for incoming mail.
(2) Go to your rules, and add a final rule. For "Every Message", do the action "Play Sound", and select the appropriate sound.
(3) Go back to each of your other rules you have set up, and make sure that each has as its last action "Stop evaluating rules".
(4) Go to your Junk preferences, click the "Advanced" button to access your "Junk mail" rule, and make sure that its last action is "Stop evaluating rules".

Note that (4) is just the same as (3)...it's just that the rule for Junk is not accessible through the regular Rules list (unless you've created another one yourself).
So what this setup does is that if a piece of incoming mail matches one of your rules, it gets sorted and then it all ends there, before a sound is played. If it meets NONE of the rules (i.e. it's a non-junk, regular ol' email) then it gets to the last rule, where a sound is played.
Note that if you have a more complex series of rules, you may have to plan a little more thoroughly which rules need a "stop evaluating" action and which don't.
Hope this works!

[avc]

Yes, I think this will work! I can't tell, because the only emails I've received from my mailing lists since I've made the change you suggested arrived at the about the same time as "normal" emails.
I should have thought of this myself. Actually, I think I will slightly modify this and have the mailing list messages play a different sound. This is even better than I my original idea.
Thanks!
Alfred

[moose_n_squirrel]

And if you have AppleScripts that play sounds or use Speech, you can make sounds or have the Mac read senders and subjects out loud only for messages that fit your rules.
You can test the sounds on messages you already received. Do a Message/Apply Rules to selected emails.

[lkalliance]

Glad I could help. Good luck!