The mystery began a few weeks ago… I was working away when all of a sudden, my computer (and a few around me) began beeping VERY loudly 3 times. This is no ordinary beep….. This is a VERY loud Machine BEEPING sound. Apparently we all received the same email in Outlook which was marked as High Importance or Urgent. The Mystery however was, WHERE did this new notification alert come from?
I began the search in my Outlook rules but quickly discovered that wasn’t it. I then remembered a new Outlook Add-on which was recently installed which integrated our Cisco Systems Phones/Voicemail with our Outlook client (Outlook 2003 or 2007) called Cisco Unity ViewMail. After some digging, I FOUND IT! The ViewMail Add-on for Outlook WAS the culprit!
So, to disable the ANNOYING 3 Beep Notification when your Outlook Client Receives a High Importance or Urgent Email, just follow the simples steps below:
1: In Microsoft Outlook, Click Tools, ViewMail Options
All shots taken from Vista Enterprise SP1 and Outlook 2007
2: Click Notification Tab, Uncheck Play urgent message sound, Click OK
All done! The annoying BEEPING has been BANISHED! VERY Groovy indeed!
Tags: outlook, cisco unity, beeping, viewmail, alert notification
Thanks for this. I have been trying to figure this one out for a while. It really hurts your ears when you have headphones plugged into the PC/Laptop and have them on your ears. Notification now turned off.
Ouch!
Glad the article helped out! Welcome to the site Bryce! Thanks for the comment!
Anyway to disable the high importance option all together?
@ Gene – Welcome to the site!
If I understand your question correct, there is no “Setting” in Outlook 2003 or 2007 to disable the “High Importance” attribute assigned to emails however, there is a simple way to easily remove the High Importance attribute to emails you receive.
Simple create a new Outlook Rule – Click – Tools, Rules and Alerts, New Rule.
From there create a new rule that looks like the following:
Apply this rule after the message arrives:
marked as “High Importance”
mark it as “Normal Importance”
Hope that helps!
Thanks for the groove now Mr.Groove.
@Anthony – Your welcome! I’m glad the article helped you out!
Thanks a lot!!! This was really annoying, and MS Help was no help at all…
6.26.2008
I have Windows XP with Outlook 2007 where Tools/ViewMail Options is not available.
The solution for this is configuration is:
Tools/Options/Preferences Tab/EMail Options…/Message Handling/Advanced Email Options…/When New Items Arrive In My Inbox/Deselect “Play A Sound”.
Hope this helps.
Suzanne
Thank you thank you thank you! That has annoyed me for so long.
Thanks! I will pass this along.
Thanks m8, that helped
When i heard that loud annoying sound the first time i thought my battery was running low because my Lenovo low-bat alert sounds the same.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
I was just recently upgraded at work and never had this problem with the previous version of Outlook. I had been searching and searching for the solution through all the menus but just couldn’t seem to find it.
@Suzanne – Excellent! I’m glad I could help out! Welcome to the site. If anything else drives you crazy, feel free to post your question in our forum – http://www.groovypost.com/forum/
THANKS!!!! I was beginning to loose my hearing.
Thanks so much for this – I was able to fix the problem before our local IT guy. My office just got that phone “upgrade” too, which explains why we’d never noticed the sound before.
Thanks for the wonderful tip.
I used to get some wild stares in office whenever a new mail with High Importance would arrive. I had to act very “technically handicapped” as I couldn’t figure out how to fix this.
@Carmen – Tell me about it! Before I figured this one out I would jump in my chair almost everytime I received an email marked urgent!
@Rebecca – Anytime! Welcome to groovyPost!
@Kiran – Hehehhe… I remember before I found this the entire Office would start beeping anytime a new Urgent email arrived. Drove us ALL crazy!
So f’ing annoying!!!
Could you please help me on this. I dont see “View Mail Options” in my Outlook. I use Outlook 2003.
Thanks,
Paresh
In Outlook 2003, choose the Tools menu item.
Pick Options …
You will be in the Preferences Tab, click the E-mail Options … button, then the Advanced E-mail Options … button. Then Un-check the Play a sound check-box. You will prob still get a noise for messages marked as Important.
Thanks for your comments.
Is there any way I should get alert message for High importance emails which stays on the desktop till I close it?
Thanks,
Paresh
@paresh – Hmm… The closest thing you could do would be create an Outlook rule to Display a Desktop Notification Alert when a High Importance emails arrive. You can then adjust how long Desktop Alert Notification rule remains in Outlook by going to:
1. On the Tools menu, click Options.
2. On the Preferences tab, click E-mail Options.
3. Click Advanced E-Mail Options.
4. Click Desktop Alert Settings.
I personally DON’T think it’s a good option since if your not at your desk, you might miss the email.
Another option I would suggest is to Create an Outlook rule to FLAG the email for follow-up when it arrives. You could also setup a Rule to send a TXT Message to your Mobile phone if you wanted.
Hope that helps. Outlook rules are VERY easy to setup and can be VERY useful. I have at least 20 setup in my inbox to handle my daily activities.
Thanks for the reply. The best way it to set the rule to get the dialog box for High importance mail which stays on the desktop until you close it. To do this create blank rule, select “marked as Importance” and set importance level to high and click next and select “display alert message on desktop” and set the alert message you would like to display.
Thanks,
Paresh
@paresh, Thanks for the reply and very good to know. I actually didn’t realize it until you mentioned it that the Display Alert Message on Desktop will remain on the screen until action is taken. Thanks for the head up!
Thanks much, worked perfectly.
@Justin, Excellent! Thanks for the feedback!
Yaaaay. Finally, stupid beeping off, set mode /ignore collegues who have a habit of marking their emails as high-importance for the most minor thing.
This info is nowhere else to be found.
Beyond groovy. Thanks.
@ds,
hehehe – Thanks for the feedback. I can’t tell you how many “Thank You” emails I got at worked when I figured out the 3 beep “scare you to death” alert!
THANKS! This was driving me crazy.
Tell me about it! It would half scare me to death each time the alarm went off!
Glad it helped you out!