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

I would also like to know how to disable this sound. I live in an apartment complex, with only a walkway between my building and another. The building right across from my room in which I have my computer in, is close enough that I can hear the people talking from across the way. I don't want this start up sound as its too loud, and almost screams "I'm here, come and get me!"

My neighbors don't need to be aware of my computer. I don't need the added stress of knowing they can hear my computer.

I should be able to just click a button somewhere to give me the option of turning this sound off.

silverswept wrote:

I would also like to know how to disable this sound. I live in an apartment complex, with only a walkway between my building and another. The building right across from my room in which I have my computer in, is close enough that I can hear the people talking from across the way. I don't want this start up sound as its too loud, and almost screams "I'm here, come and get me!"

My neighbors don't need to be aware of my computer. I don't need the added stress of knowing they can hear my computer.

I should be able to just click a button somewhere to give me the option of turning this sound off.

Turn down the volume or mute it completely before you shut down. That way when you start it up of a morning, you won't hear the chime. There is otherwise, no button you can push after you turn it on that will mute the sound.

mrgustavos

Thank you. This works.

To others: Copy the contents of mrgustavos suggestion to Notes; then you will always have it.

Oh, did I mention this works on El Capitan?

UPDATE: Woops! This suggestion will work on a warm re-boot only! El Capitan will remove the command upon cold start.

If you hold down the Mute button on an Apple keyboard at boot, that will stop the chime. (F10 on most keyboards.)

We are warned that to prevent hacking we need to turn off computers when not in use for long a time, such as overnight. Also at the moment I live in a flat where this sound travels through walls and floors and disturbs others if I decide to switch it on In the night or early morning. I have hifi speakers connected via the jack port on my iMac and the start up boom will still sound through the imac's speakers as that the macs test sound.

So maybe the big question here is, are our macs safe from hackers in sleep mode? I have never been paranoid with Apple Macs being hacked and I have used them since the 80's, as pc's are generally targeted, however better safe than sorry.

thank you, peace and love

Hello Duculetu,

I never turn off my computers unless they are not going to be used for a week or so. If you have browsed carefully you should have no reason to be concerned about hacking. If you turn down the volume then put the machine to sleep overnight, when you start again in the morning, the sound will be at the level the volume had been seet the night previously.

tingo wrote:

So maybe the big question here is, are our macs safe from hackers in sleep mode? I have never been paranoid with Apple Macs being hacked and I have used them since the 80's, as pc's are generally targeted, however better safe than sorry.

thank you, peace and love

Your Mac cannot be "hacked" while in sleep mode. The greatest vulnerability is someone else gaining physical access to your mac, so make sure you require a password to wake from sleep.

The next greatest vulnerability is you! Most malware takes the form of a "trojan": it pretends to be something else and you download it and install it.

Hey Duculetu,

I know your post is fairly old, but I have been using this preference pane since Tiger I think.

http://www5e.biglobe.ne.jp/~arcana/index.en.html

It's the Startup Sound preference pane. It hasn't been updated in forever, but I have the last version (1.1b3) installed on both a Mavericks and an El Capitan system and it works for me.

To be precise, I installed El Capitan over top of a Mavericks installation, so it was there when I installed El Capitan. But despite being old, it still works.

If you're still looking, maybe this will help you.

Andy

I doubt that it would install on EC - it hasn't been updated since 2011 and was declared not compatible with Lion - last compatible was Snow Leopard. It may use a PPC installer which will not work on newer systems (but the app may work if it was installed previously).

While this might have been true when you wrote your reply, plugging in a headphone to a MacBook Pro using El Capitan 10.11.5 does not mute or defeat the boot-up chime, which still plays out of the speaker. I know this for a fact because it just woke up the baby.

I completely agree with you. I feel like there used to be the ability to control the volume of just the alert sounds, I often play music loud through speakers and the startup sound is very, very loud. I feel like there used to be an easier control of just the alert sounds, but this super loud chime does not seem to be controllable. I agree it is absurd not to be able to control the chime volume and I also agree that I like to power off my computer when not using it. I have a battery of external drives and monitors and peripherals and I turn off the whole power strip when shut down. There is no control of the chime I can find, and no reason not to have it very low volume if desired, compared to external speakers of music which I like at a certain established level in my home studio, or leaving the computer on eternally.

Hi

If you would like to suggest that Apple considers adding a built-in option to disable the startup chime, you can do so here:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

Mute has no effect if something is plugged into the headphone jack. This is my #1 pet peeve with the Mac (really! - if you've ever had to reboot in the middle of the night) - I had a hack that worked on the older ones permanently, but that's not available on the newer machines.
I understand the beloved boot sound is Apple's "trademark", but dang, it's not the eighties anymore - time to let this completely useless sound go. It serves no purpose at all (not even diagnostic). Time for Apple Mac to put the big-boy pants on.

time to let this completely useless sound go. It serves no purpose at all (not even diagnostic)

You are certainly entitled to your opinion; however, it is not based on actual facts.

A Mac performs a power on self test and the chime lets you know that it has passed the test. Otherwise, you will hear different sounds/see different screens indicating a problem (see the explanation under Power On in the first link):

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204156

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202768

You can give this tip a try:

Adjust the Volume of Your Mac's Startup Chimes

Tom