If you’re a regular Mac user, you know that every time a Mac starts up or reboots, it is accompanied by the startup sound. Some might like this, but others might despise it. While you can mute the startup sound by holding down the “Mute” key just before you shut it down, one of the better ways is to permanently disable your Mac’s startup sound.
To do this, simply follow the steps below.
1. Launch Terminal. This can either be done with Spotlight or by navigating to “/Applications/Utilities/.”
2. Once Terminal is up and ready, simply enter the command to disable the boot chime and press Enter:
sudo nvram SystemAudioVolume=%80
Since we’re using a “sudo” command here, you’ll be asked to enter the admin password.
The next time you start up your Mac, it will be completely silent, with no chime whatsoever.
To return to the default setting, i.e to enable the startup chime, enter this altered command into Terminal:
sudo nvram -d SystemAudioVolume
There might be many who aren’t really comfortable with using Terminal. If you aren’t, you can use a simple and easy tool such as Silent Start to mute the chime.
1. Download Silent Start from the App Store (it is free).
2. Launch Silent Start from Launchpad. It will ask you if you want it to run automatically during login. Click “Yes.”
3. Once started, Silent Start will show up in the menubar. Click on its “Bell” icon, and turn “Mute startup chime” to “On.”
For those who are curious about its Preferences, here they are.
You can enable/disable automatic launch during startup, disable the startup sound, and whether to show notifications when the volume is restored after startup.
That’s it. Restart your Mac, and you shouldn’t hear the startup chime again. If you have any suggestions/comments, do tell us in the comments below. We always love to hear from you!
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