How do I turn off startup sound?

I usaly reboot my imac from 50 miles away. Does anyone know how to make the noise louder so I can hear it, otherwise I don't what is happening?

Oh yes the people in my office call me up anyway - no problem.

Just purchased a new 27inch iMac....was greeted to a deafening chime on start up! I can't believe Apple doesn't have a setting to reduce or mute the volume??? My previous iMac was a lot quieter, so wasn't too much of an issue. I tried the 3rd party "Ninja" program with no luck. Holding down the mute button was ineffective as well.

APPLE please fix! I don't want to wake up my partner every time I restart or boot up 😟

Ok i got it working in Mavericks!

DO THIS:

- Go to terminal.

- Write sudo nano /Library/Scripts/mute-off.sh

- Paste:

#!/bin/bash

osascript -e 'set volume without output muted'

- Press 'Ctrl + X' and press 'Y' and 'Enter'

- Write sudo nano /Library/Scripts/mute-on.sh

- Paste:

#!/bin/bash

osascript -e 'set volume with output muted'

- Press 'Ctrl + X' and press 'Y' and 'Enter'

- Paste this in terminal and press enter :

sudo chmod u+x /Library/Scripts/mute-on.sh

sudo chmod u+x /Library/Scripts/mute-off.sh

sudo defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LogoutHook /Library/Scripts/mute-on.sh

sudo defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook /Library/Scripts/mute-off.sh

- If you want to remove it again write this in terminal:

sudo defaults delete com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook

sudo defaults delete com.apple.loginwindow LogoutHook

It is really not that hard 🙂

All we did was make a command (script) that's executed (hooked) upon logout and login. So when you logout it mutes, and when you login it unmutes 🙂

OR

I made a simple install script.

Download it here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ll3t1j27eav7rrh/Muter.zip

place 'mute-on.sh' & 'mute-off.sh' on your desktop and double-click on 'mute.command'

Type your password and press 'enter'

You can now remove the files again.

Enjoy a soundless startup 🙂

Yes, this is a ridiculous feature that Apple has forced owners to deal with for many, many years, without resolution. I had installed a third party software program when I first got my iMac in '09 and had Snow Leopard installed. I have no idea what the program was, or where it resides in my computer, but it worked fine, even when I upgraded to Mavericks last month. Until yesterday. All of a sudden The Chimes are back, loud and awful! I didn't do anything to my computer, didn't add any software but there they are. Checking on the web reveals there are no positive solutions for Mavericks users unless you want to install a change to the Terminal, which involves high techy stuff which I wouldn't trust myself to interpret and utilize without permanently damaging my OS, so I'm not going to try. Why Apple won't at least open the architecture so that 3rd parties can develop and app to fix this is beyond me. Please Apple, do the right thing. Thanx.

Turning the mute "on" before shutting down or restarting TOTALLY works perfectly for me too!. No changing any settings, nothing! Too simple and what a bummer that I've put up with this for 6+ years.

Message was edited by: screamingmeanie

I keep earbuds plugged into the jack. Hit the mute button on the keyboard. (not necessary to hold during startup)

Startup Mavericks.... no startup sound.

Lot simpler than messing around with Terminal or third party software.

(Computer is a Macbook Pro. No idea if this works on all models)

For anyone interested, here is my step by step to turning off the default startup sound. This builds on Hippomormor's posts back in October, filling in the gaps for basic users such as myself and adding a bit of context. The context may not be perfect, but I'm running Mavericks 10.9.2 and this works.

open terminal

type

sudo vim /Library/Scripts/mute-on.sh

this creates a mute-on.sh script file in a vim (editor) instance

press ‘i’ this will allow you to enter or ‘insert’ text

type

#!/bin/bash

osascript -e 'set Volume with output muted'

the first line means run this script in bash. 'bash' is a shell. A shell is a program that takes your commands from the keyboard and gives them to the operating system to perform.

the second line says “run the following statement 'set Volume with output muted’”.

Applescript adopts a plain English approach and this string mutes the volume. To unmute, which we’ll have to do below, the statement will change to ‘set Volume without output muted’. I guess the plain English approach only goes so far.

press ‘Esc’. This gets you out of the ‘insert text’ mode in the vim editor

hold ‘Shift’ and press the 'z' key twice. This gets you out of the vim editor and back into Terminal

type

sudo nano /Library/Scripts/mute-off.sh

this creates a mute-off.sh file in the nano editor. why use a different editor? not sure.

in your nano instance, type

#!/bin/bash

osascript -e 'set volume without output muted'

- Press ‘control + x’ then ‘y’ then ‘enter/return’

‘control + x’ is the Exit command in the nano editor, ‘y’ for “Yes, please” and ‘enter/return’ to save it to the default chosen file (the one you’ve been editing)

You’re back in Terminal

type

sudo chmod u+x /Library/Scripts/mute-on.sh

press ‘enter’

you’ll be asked to enter your administrator password

then type

sudo chmod u+x /Library/Scripts/mute-off.sh

I was not asked for another password

then type

sudo defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LogoutHook /Library/Scripts/mute-on.sh

press ‘enter’

this tells the computer to run the mute-on script when logging out

then type

sudo defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook /Library/Scripts/mute-off.sh

press ‘enter’

this tells the computer to run the mute-off script when logging in

Close your Terminal window and restart your computer a couple of times and enjoy the silence.

Hopefully this helps and works for you too.

Actually there is not a perminent solution for turning-off startup chime without third-part apps or writing some commands in terminal.

If you do not want to use 3rd part apps and change some operation system files you have have two options;

1. Press the mute key just before shutting computer down

2. Hold the mute key while turning computer on.

imicanada wrote:

Thanks,

I have checked previous discussions. I think it ought to be user's choice to use it or not.

It's not, if you feel like hacking your Mac to get rid of it Google for solutions, use at your owm risk.

A lot of steps, but worked! I'm not comfortable with installing apps that do this for you, and was looking for a script instead.

The nano script editor thing got me confused as I was reading your process, but was back on track when the nano editor popped up for me to see after typing the said line code.

I'm running 10.7.5 on a late model 2006 imac.

Thanks for the info!

the more I read this forums,the more fun i have... a sound to tell you critical things? really? what century is this? people are supposed to have evolved, and know how to read stuff. give a **** message, telling what is wrong, not a sound! who remembers sounds codes, multiple keyboard shortcuts an terminal commands? 21st century ...MG..

Hippomormor, could you help me please? After I have made the changes you mentioned I still have the startup sound but now my computer is totally mute:-) I mean no sound at all. Any suggestion how I set it back? My timeline is off so that is not an option.

Thanks in advance!

The volume of the startup sound is whatever volume you set it to before you turn off your computer.

So just lower your volume to mute before you shut down and when you turn it back on you'll here nothing.

Remember it's the volume of your computer, so pull out whatever's in your audio socket before you lower the volume.

Thanks so very much, darksouljp, MuteCon works perfectly for my late 2013 iMac. I tried some Terminal workarounds but they didn't work. This is a great little app; it is not all or nothing, I set it so I hear a low sound, not totally mute and it can also reset the sound to any volume I like after booting up. This should have been integrated into Apple's own System Preference. Sometimes Apple can be so wrong. Anyway, love it.