An M2 MacBook Air on a table.
Marcus Mears III / How-To Geek

To disable the Mac startup sound, first open your Mac’s System Settings window from the Apple menu. Choose “Sound” and disable “Play sound on startup.” You may also disable or allow the startup sound from the Terminal on older Macs with out the graphical possibility.

While you boot up or restart your MacBook or desktop Mac, it is going to play the normal startup sound, often known as the startup chime. This allows you to know the Mac is beginning up correctly, however you may disable it to make your Mac boot silently.

Find out how to Disable the Startup Sound on a Mac (or Allow It)

You possibly can simply disable your Mac’s startup sound from System Settings. Click on the Apple menu on the prime of your Mac’s display and choose “System Settings” to get began.

Word: For those who’re utilizing an older model of macOS like macOS Monterey or macOS Big Sur, click on “System Preferences” right here as an alternative. Apple renamed this display “System Settings” in macOS Ventura.

Select "System Settings."

Click on “Sound” within the sidebar. (On older variations of macOS, click on the “Sound” icon as an alternative.)

Toggle the “Play Sound at Startup” choice to disable the startup sound.

For those who’ve beforehand disabled the startup chime, you may re-enable it by turning on the “Play Sound at Startup” possibility right here.

On macOS Monterey and macOS Huge Sur, the choice will look just a little completely different, but it surely’s named the identical factor.

For those who don’t see a “Play Sound at Startup” possibility right here, which means you’re utilizing an older model of macOS—particularly, macOS Catalina or an older model of Mac OS X. The choice shouldn’t be current on this variations of macOS, because it was added in macOS Huge Sur.

You possibly can nonetheless silence the startup sound, however you’ll want to make use of a Terminal command that modifications a hidden setting.

Find out how to Change the Quantity of the Mac Startup Sound

Your Mac’s startup sound will depend on the quantity stage your Mac was set to when it was shut down. In case your Mac was set to most quantity stage, the boot chime will likely be performed at most quantity. In case your Mac was muted, the startup chime will likely be silenced.

Particularly, it will depend on the quantity of your Mac’s built-in audio system. For those who don’t have any audio system or headphones plugged into your Mac, you may simply change your Mac’s quantity slider to regulate the quantity stage.

You possibly can management the quantity stage of your Mac’s built-in audio system from the Sound pane in System Settings. Choose the built-in audio system below Output after which select your required Output Quantity.

Changing the "Output volume" for an iMac's built-in speakers.

Find out how to Allow the Startup Sound on Macs From 2016 to 2020

Between 2016 and 2020, Apple launched Macs with the startup sound disabled by default. (Earlier than 2016 and since 2020, nonetheless, the startup sound has been enabled by default.)

In case you are utilizing one among these Macs and have a contemporary model of macOS put in, you may allow the startup chime from System Settings. In case you are nonetheless utilizing an older model of macOS and don’t have the graphical possibility, you’ll have to allow the chime utilizing a Terminal command.

To show the chime on, we’ve got to change a setting in your Mac’s NVRAM (quick for Non-Risky Random Entry Reminiscence) utilizing a terminal command. It’s not as scary because it sounds, however right here’s some background on what’s occurring.

In a Mac, NVRAM is a small quantity of reminiscence that shops computer-wide settings. It remembers these settings with out energy, in order that they’re accessible at startup and obtainable between system restarts.

With the instructions beneath, we’re altering a setting in NVRAM known as “StartupMute” that tells the pc whether or not or to not emit the chime at startup. The ‘sudo’ command is important as a result of ‘nvram’ is a robust command that requires superuser permissions to make use of.

First, launch Spotlight Search by hitting Command + Area in your keyboard. You’ll see a big search bar pop up in the course of your display.

Apple Spotlight Search Bar

Kind terminal after which hit the Return key.

Launching Terminal.app through Spotlight

This can launch the Terminal app. With its default settings, Terminal seems as a window with a black background.

Within the Terminal window, kind sudo nvram StartupMute=%00after which hit the Return button.

Mac OS X Terminal Window - Turn on Startup Chime

It’ll ask you to your password. Kind in your password and hit Return once more.

Now restart your Mac and see if it really works. The chime needs to be there.

For those who’re uninterested in listening to your startup chime and want to disable it once more, right here’s easy methods to do it.

Launch Highlight Search by hitting Command + Area on the keyboard. You will note a big search bar pop up in the course of your display.

Apple Spotlight Search Bar

Kind terminal and hit Return.

Launching Terminal.app through Spotlight

This can launch the Terminal app. With its default settings, Terminal seems as a window with a black background.

Within the Terminal window, kind sudo nvram StartupMute=%01and hit the Return key.

Mac OS X Terminal Window - Turn off Startup Chime

If it asks you to your password, kind it in and hit Return.

Now restart your Mac and see if it really works. The chime needs to be turned off.

Find out how to Disable the Startup Sound on Older Variations of macOS

The next directions apply to macOS 10.15 Catalina in addition to earlier variations of macOS and Mac OS X. On trendy model of macOS, you may merely use the checkbox in System Settings as an alternative.

To completely disable the startup sound so it isn’t performed at startup on older variations of macOS, even when you’ve got your quantity stage set to most quantity while you shut down, it’s good to use a Terminal command.

To do that, open a Terminal window. Press Command + Area to open Spotlight search, kind Terminal, and press Enter. Or, you may open a Finder window and head to Purposes > Utilities > Terminal.

Launch the Terminal from Mac Spotlight.

Run the next command within the terminal window:

sudo nvram SystemAudioVolume=%80

Enter your password when prompted, and press “Enter.” Restart your Mac, and also you received’t hear the sound.

Run the sudo nvram command that will mute the Mac startup sound.

For those who’d prefer to undo your change later and have the startup chime play usually while you boot your Mac, run the next command:

sudo nvram -d SystemAudioVolume

Assist, the Command Didn’t Silence the Startup Chime!

Some individuals report that the above command doesn’t work on their Macs. If it didn’t silence the startup chime in your system, you could need to attempt operating one among these different instructions as an alternative. These reportedly work for some individuals. This can be hardware-dependent, and sure instructions might solely work on sure {hardware}.

sudo nvram SystemAudioVolume=%01
sudo nvram SystemAudioVolume=%00
sudo nvram SystemAudioVolume=" "

(Within the above command, that’s a single house character between the citation marks.)


Startup sounds also can inform you of issues along with your Mac’s boot course of. Apple has more info on startup tones and what they mean on its web site.

Many web sites say you may silence your Mac at boot by urgent the “Mute” button in your keyboard and holding it down proper after you boot the Mac up. Nevertheless, this didn’t work for us. Maybe it solely works on older variations of the Mac working system, or with older MacBooks or desktop Macs.

Keep in mind that you simply received’t hear the startup chime when resuming from sleep or standby mode. That’s one other good cause to only put your Mac to sleep somewhat than utterly shutting it down, though everybody must carry out a full shutdown sometimes—if just for a system replace.


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