Don’t Panic Alarm

I recently celebrated Towel Day, a day to honor the life of Douglas Adams, author of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The book sells so well because it has “Don’t Panic” on the front in large friendly letters. It inspired me to make a Don’t Panic alarm for my Mac. Sorry I don’t know how to do this in Windows, perhaps someone can leave instructions in the comments.

During one part of the radio drama, Zaphod has to get out of the Hitchhiker’s building in the middle of a bombing. An alarm sounds and starts saying “Don’t panic.” I extracted this, put it in a .wav file, and installed it. It has already helped diffuse a few situations.

First, download this file. Next, move it into your ~/Library folder. Finder hides this by default, but just type Command-Shift-G and type ~/Library. Next, copy it as you would. Assuming you have it in your Downloads folder, the following command in Terminal will also do it:

mv “~/Downloads/Don’t Panic.wav” ~/Library/Sounds

Once you have moved the file, open your system preferences and select Sound. Choose the Sound Effects tab. You should then find Don’t Panic in the table of alert sounds.

Share and enjoy!