Context

I have an R script that takes a long time to run, and I used to run it with beepr::beep() at the end to notify me when it was finished. I got this idea from, “Is there a way to make R beep/play a sound at the end of a script?”

I would like to run the script using a background job instead so that I can continue to work on other things within the same project. I would still like to be notified (with sound) when the script completes.

The Problem

The problem is that beepr::beep() does not appear to work for background jobs. Here is an example that reproduces this on my system. This should be in it’s own R script and run as a background job through the RStudio interface.

install.packages("beepr")
library(beepr)
print("About to beep...")
beepr::beep(3)
print("Finshed beeping!")

I can confirm that no sound is played, but the print statements were visible in the output from the background job.

The following package(s) will be installed:
- beepr [2.0]
These packages will be installed into <path redacted>.
# Installing packages --------------------------------------------------------
- Installing beepr ...                          OK [linked from cache]
Successfully installed 1 package in 5.4 milliseconds.
[1] "About to beep..."
[1] "Finshed beeping!"

How can I get the script (or RStudio) to notify me (w/ sound) when the background job has completed?

Here is my system/version information:

> version
               _                           
platform       aarch64-apple-darwin20      
arch           aarch64                     
os             darwin20                    
system         aarch64, darwin20           
status                                     
major          4                           
minor          3.3                         
year           2024                        
month          02                          
day            29                          
svn rev        86002                       
language       R                           
version.string R version 4.3.3 (2024-02-29)
nickname       Angel Food Cake