USBChime icon

USBChime

Play custom sounds when USB devices connect or disconnect on your Mac — just like Windows.

Download for macOS View on GitHub
v1.0.0 · Free & Open Source macOS 14.0+ Apple Silicon & Intel 100% Offline
Features

Everything you need, nothing you don't

USBChime lives quietly in your menu bar and brings the classic Windows USB sound experience to macOS.

Instant chimes

Connect and disconnect tones play the moment a USB device is plugged in or removed.

9 built-in sounds

Including the authentic Windows-style connect and disconnect tones you remember.

Custom audio files

Set your own WAV, MP3, AIFF or M4A files for each event.

Full volume control

Per-event volume slider plus a master on/off switch.

Ignore HID devices

Skip keyboards, mice, trackpads and gamepads — optional.

Built-in event log

A built-in log records every detected connect and disconnect.

Launch at login

Start automatically whenever you log in.

Trilingual UI

English, 简体中文 and 繁體中文 — follows your system or switch manually.

More coming soon

New features are on the way — stay tuned for future updates.

Menu bar resident · 100% offline

Lives quietly in the menu bar (LSUIElement) with no Dock clutter. No network code, no analytics, no tracking.

MIT Licensed · Open Source
How it works

A lightweight IOKit watcher

Zero external dependencies — only Apple system frameworks (SwiftUI, AppKit, IOKit, ServiceManagement).

Watch the registry

USBChime watches the IOKit registry — IOUSBDevice and IOUSBHostDevice — for device changes.

Diff snapshots

Periodic snapshots are compared to detect connect and disconnect events instantly.

Dedup & baseline

Registry-entry IDs deduplicate devices on Apple Silicon; a baseline snapshot prevents false chimes for devices already attached.

Install

Up and running in under a minute

macOS 14.0 or later · Apple Silicon & Intel.

1
Download USBChime.dmg
Grab the latest release from GitHub Releases
2
Drag to Applications
Drag USBChime.app into your Applications folder.
3
Launch & enjoy
Look for the USB-C icon in your menu bar. Toggle sounds, pick tones, or open Settings with ⌘,.

Build from source

No Xcode required — Swift Package Manager + Command Line Tools is enough.
$ bash build.sh
# release build · bundles sounds + icon · ad-hoc signed
$ open USBChime.app
Privacy

Private by design

100% offline — zero data collection

USBChime never collects, stores or transmits any personal data. No network code, no analytics, no tracking. All USB detection happens locally on your Mac via IOKit.