Duculetu

Q: How to turn off or mute a Mac's boot sound chime?

Hello guys,

 

I already searched and there are a few threads on this but most of them are pretty old (2008-ish) and those techniques do not apply anymore.

To keep this short: Can I mute, turn off, volume down the chime boot sound that a Mac does when it boots up? I understand that the sound is useful as it is a diagnostic that everything is OK but i find it too loud and annoying.

 

I am looking to upgrade today from Yosemite to El Captain and was asking for those who already updated if Apple included a function or if you know anything that might work.

 

I have heard that there are some script/string to enter in the terminal but no longer work and that I could mute the mac before shutting down which seems very primitive.

 

Thank you!

iMac, OS X El Capitan (10.11)

Posted on Oct 2, 2015 2:12 AM

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Q: How to turn off or mute a Mac's boot sound chime?

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  • by seventy one,

    seventy one seventy one Oct 2, 2015 2:21 AM in response to Duculetu
    Level 6 (15,073 points)
    Peripherals
    Oct 2, 2015 2:21 AM in response to Duculetu

    Do you shut down your computer every night or even every time you finish a session.   If so, it is an unnecessary practice.   Not shutting down will limit the number of times you will be exposed to the chime and it is perfectly safe to work this way unless you have people around you that you dont want to have access to your machine.    I only shut down when I am away for a few days.  

     

    Further, when you do have to shut down, if you volume down just BEFORE you actually shut down, it should restart at the same low level.   Mine does.

  • by Duculetu,

    Duculetu Duculetu Oct 2, 2015 2:30 AM in response to seventy one
    Level 1 (1 points)
    Oct 2, 2015 2:30 AM in response to seventy one

    First of all, thank you for your reply and interest.

     

    Yes, i usually shut down everytime I end the need of using the mac. It's not because I want to protect the data on it from other, it's just how I was raised. I cannot leave it running if I don't intend to use it ... let's call it saving the world, being green or not wanting to pay a big electricity bill; So there are days when i power on the mac 2-3 times per day.

     

    The other point with the volume, you are right, it works but it's pretty sketchy. There are times when I forget to do this, and let's be honest - it's not very elegant. We are in 2015 and we still encounter issues like this?

     

    Though I am convinced that we won't get this "feature" very soon, I must find a way to fix it. I wanted to start this thread a long time ago but didn't had the time or forgot until i had to open the mac again.

     

    Any solutions? If this chime comes of another port than the main speaker, I am willing to manually remove it once and for all.

  • by seventy one,

    seventy one seventy one Oct 2, 2015 3:04 AM in response to Duculetu
    Level 6 (15,073 points)
    Peripherals
    Oct 2, 2015 3:04 AM in response to Duculetu

    As far as I know, Apple want you to have the chime reminder that all is well.   I agree with that thinking, all too often people with no great experience will turn off the chime and forget.    When a problem arises they have no warning. 

     

    I, too, have heard of a terminal command but I never use the terminal facility.  A single space or dot out of place can wreak havoc. 

     

    From all I read, the usage of power is minimal when the machine is in sleep state, though I couldn't convert that into monetory savings ... probably pennies per month.

     

    I think you should go to Systems Preferences > Energy saver and jiggle that until you find a combination that suits.  Then use the sleep function and remember to turn down the sound if you do shut down.  Inelegant it may be, but it is practical.

  • by Duculetu,

    Duculetu Duculetu Oct 2, 2015 4:36 AM in response to seventy one
    Level 1 (1 points)
    Oct 2, 2015 4:36 AM in response to seventy one

    Ok, as I said before, I understand why that is there; I'm not looking to mute it completely or to turn it off but if I can set the chime volume to let's say 10% all the times, without me having to mute everytime I want to shut down the mac, it would be great.

    Another thing I cannot understand is if most users mute the mac before they shut it down, then they won't hear the chime upon boot, correct? So if the mac (of people who mutes before shutting down) has an error or something, they still won't be able to hear it. So, though is a bad idea to not hear the sound, it is the same for muting before shutdown as is for totally disabling it, is it not?

     

    Let me give you another example. In most cases when I power up the mac, that sound is very loud (thus my issue). If I had someone sleeping in the same room or a small child in another room/close; knowing that the sound would be so loud will restrict me of using it.

     

    Another thing that I cannot understand is why there are so few people that complain about this? Am I the only one/few people who get annoyed by this?

  • by Barney-15E,

    Barney-15E Barney-15E Oct 2, 2015 4:51 AM in response to Duculetu
    Level 8 (49,737 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 2, 2015 4:51 AM in response to Duculetu

    Plug in a set of headphones or a just a mini-jack extension cable. The sound will go to the headphones, or to nothing at all.

     

    There are so few complaining because we never shut down and we don't keep a desktop Mac in a room where people sleep.

    Also, my volume is very low all the time. I have no need for it to be above one or two ticks.

  • by seventy one,

    seventy one seventy one Oct 2, 2015 5:00 AM in response to Duculetu
    Level 6 (15,073 points)
    Peripherals
    Oct 2, 2015 5:00 AM in response to Duculetu

    I never at any time said mute it.   I said turn the volume down .. in line with what  Barney has now joined us to suggest say 10% of full.

  • by Duculetu,

    Duculetu Duculetu Oct 2, 2015 5:27 AM in response to seventy one
    Level 1 (1 points)
    Oct 2, 2015 5:27 AM in response to seventy one

    Ok, thank you for your replies. I rest my case. I do not have anything i can bring to the table to justify my need of silence nor to convince more people to stand by my side as I fought to put an end to the chime boot sound once and for all.

  • by seakai,Helpful

    seakai seakai Oct 5, 2015 11:49 PM in response to Duculetu
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Oct 5, 2015 11:49 PM in response to Duculetu

    Duculetu,

     

    I feel your pain. Hate that chime. I've tried a number of solutions. Just today, I updated my Cocktail app, which now supports El Capitan. It has (among other features and capabilities) a check box to silence the start up sound. And yes, it works. Cocktail is relatively pricey (up to $19 now for a single user version). But it is a great maintenance app for for macs. It's certainly not worth that cost if you just use it to silence the start up sound. But if you use it the way it's meant, to clean out old files, delete localization files, etc, then you might find it's worth the cost. There's plenty of info out there to help you decide.

  • by Duculetu,

    Duculetu Duculetu Oct 5, 2015 11:51 PM in response to seakai
    Level 1 (1 points)
    Oct 5, 2015 11:51 PM in response to seakai

    Thank you for the recommendation. I'll check it out.

  • by kahlostipper,

    kahlostipper kahlostipper Oct 28, 2015 11:12 AM in response to Duculetu
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 28, 2015 11:12 AM in response to Duculetu

    I've tried everything possible, the only thing that worked (and it only works with nothing plugged into the audio port) is running the script from: https://github.com/teored90/nobootsound

  • by wejpress,

    wejpress wejpress Nov 21, 2015 10:59 PM in response to Duculetu
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 21, 2015 10:59 PM in response to Duculetu

    You don't to bring anything to the table to justify your need for silence; the chime is annoying plain and simple.

     

    For a complete overview of the issue check out this link. The solution is about half way down the page (logging in to terminal et. al.) but the entire article is a good read:

     

    http://www.macissues.com/2015/03/13/how-to-silence-your-macs-startup-sound/ 

     

    Cheers

  • by loot tool,

    loot tool loot tool Dec 1, 2015 4:32 PM in response to wejpress
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 1, 2015 4:32 PM in response to wejpress

    startninja is the app i use for that. that chime sound is awful if the kids are a sleep

  • by silvergc,

    silvergc silvergc Dec 1, 2015 6:42 PM in response to Duculetu
    Level 3 (925 points)
    Dec 1, 2015 6:42 PM in response to Duculetu

    The simplest solution is to mute the sound before you shut down.  That also mutes the startup sounds when you restart.

     

    Of course you have to do this every time you turn the sound back on while using the computer.

  • by leroydouglas,

    leroydouglas leroydouglas Dec 1, 2015 6:53 PM in response to Duculetu
    Level 7 (22,873 points)
    Notebooks
    Dec 1, 2015 6:53 PM in response to Duculetu

    It actually is a good thing, if it didn't happen that is a bad thing.  It serves a purpose, the sound indicates that diagnostic tests run immediately at startup have found no hardware or fundamental software problems.

     

    Embrace the chime

     

    I never shut my machine down, or restart unless I have to for maintenance reason etc.?  What purpose does it serve?

     

     

    MacBook Pro (15-inch Mid 2012), OS X El Capitan(10.11.1), i7 480GB SSD 16GB RAM iPhone5 iOS9.1, Parallels10.0.2

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