Stay Grounded in Time: Introducing Hourly Audio Player for macOS

In the flow of a busy day, it is incredibly easy to lose track of time. You sit down to check your email, and before you know it, three hours have passed. Standard calendar alerts and alarms can feel intrusive or disruptive, often breaking your creative focus.

Hourly Audio Player is a lightweight, elegant macOS menu bar utility designed to keep you gently aware of the passing hours. Built natively for macOS using SwiftUI and AVFoundation, the app lets you play custom audio alerts at the top of every hour, helping you build a healthier relationship with time.

What is Hourly Audio Player?

Hourly Audio Player is a "set-and-forget" utility that sits unobtrusively in your macOS menu bar. Instead of flashing alarms or loud sirens, it plays a sound of your choice at the top of each hour. You can choose a classic grandfather clock chime for noon, a gentle bell for work hours, or assign different files to different times of day to contextualize your schedule.

Key Features

• Hourly Audio Reminders: Plays a selected audio chime automatically at the top of the hour.
• Custom Audio Assignment: Assign distinct audio tracks to specific hours of the day (0-23). Custom file mapping allows you to customize your alerts to match your daily energy levels.
• Automated Filename Matching: When you import files, the application automatically scans filenames for numbers (like 12.mp3 or 18_chime.wav) to pre-assign them to the correct hour.
• System Sound Fallback: If you do not assign a custom audio file to a particular hour, the app seamlessly falls back to playing a default macOS system chime so you never miss a beat.
• Glanceable Menu Bar Interface: Clicking the menu bar icon shows you the current time, a countdown to the next chime, and the name of the next audio file scheduled to play.
• Instant Playback Testing: Includes a quick "Test Current Hour" action to preview your sound levels and confirm playback.
• Native & Lightweight: Optimized using native Swift and AppKit bridges to ensure it has virtually zero battery impact and blends beautifully into the macOS interface.

Comprehensive Format Support

Because Hourly Audio Player is built on top of the native Apple AVFoundation framework, it supports any audio format recognized by macOS out of the box:

• MP3 (.mp3)
• WAV (.wav)
• M4A / AAC (.m4a)
• AIFF (.aiff)
• And other native macOS audio wrappers.

How Your Audio Files Are Managed

Hourly Audio Player is designed to keep your workspace tidy.

• Automatic Storage: When you select and import custom audio files, the app automatically copies them to a dedicated folder in your user directory: ~/Documents/HourlyAudioPlayer/. This prevents broken file links if you delete or relocate the original files.
• Persistent Preferences: Your hour assignments and audio configurations are stored locally on your device via UserDefaults, keeping your settings saved even after system restarts.

System Compatibility

• Operating System: macOS 12.0 (Monterey) and later.
• Hardware Support: Native compilation for both Apple Silicon (M1, M2, M3, M4) and Intel-based Mac computers.