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Comment by kstenerud | Hacker News Reader

I just wish there was a way to turn OFF the startup chime on a mac. There are many situations where I DON'T want it to make its loud (and recently bass-amplified) "HEY EVERYONE IN THE ROOM! I'M STARTING UP!" noise (like when someone is sleeping nearby). In fact, I can't think of any situation where the chime makes things better than no chime.

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Ahh disagree! When your Mac goes wrong / displays aren’t working or connecting, it’s the only easy way to know the thing has actually rebooted. No lights, HDD clicking noise, nothing like in the olden days.

Actually if it were a quiet chime I wouldn't mind. But the 60db bass-enhanced obnoxious chime they chose is too much.

Most wintel laptops do a quiet beep (which you can also disable easily from the BIOS).

It's pretty easy. System Preferences - Sound, it's right there.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211996

Well, it's there now. :) Notice that article says "With macOS Big Sur 11 or later..."; that checkbox they show for the startup sound isn't available in earlier versions.

There is, however, a hidden "StartupMute" preference. If StartupMute is enabled, the chime is turned off, and vice-versa.

    sudo nvram StartupMute=%00   # turn on the startup chime
    sudo nvram StartupMute=%01   # turn off the startup chime

https://eclecticlight.co/2020/02/22/how-to-enable-the-startu...

Ah perfect! Thanks!!!

Only way I know of is to mute your speakers before shutdown/restart

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