OS X : Disable Mac Startup Sound

Contributor Icon Contributed by risherz Date Icon December 31, 2007  
Tag Icon Tagged: Apple Mac

Every time you turn on your mac it makes a boot up chime, which has been with OS X since OS 9. Want to stop that “annoying” sound that your mac makes during boot up? Here are a couple of ways to help you do just that.


The first option is to manually stop the sound that your Mac makes simply by pressing the mute key every time you wish to shutdown or restart your mac. Then once your computer restarts, increase the sound back to normal. This way you only have to temporarily mute the sound when you find it to be distracting (for places like the library or a room filled with “mac haters”). The only downside to this is that you’ll have to preplan the “silent start-up” and do it every time if you hate the start up chime.

The second solution is a much more automated one. First get the Startup Sound PrefPane from Arcana labs. After you download it, install it. Then go to Preferences > Startup Sound and check the Mute checkbox. Make sure turn on start up volume control is checked as well.

Mac Startup Sound Prefpane

It might not start muting the startup sound the very first time to restart the computer, so I recommend doing a restart after you mute it just to make sure.

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  • petitefute
    Thank you so much you are a life saver, as I live in my Unis silent library that noise is the embarrassing bane of my life, and thankfully it's gone.
  • jeff5267
    Thank you for creating this PrefPane... The start up chime was driving me nuts... Once I installed it and did a restart the sound was no longer there... Keep up the good work your doing...
  • csrandle
    Aaaaaack, it's not working for me and this stupid sound is driving me nuts!
    I installed the Prepane and went to preferences and went to startup sound but it won't let me in...I can't click the lock to make changes.
    What can I do? Please help.
  • Andreas
    I wished more people in the library I am in would have read this article. This stupid startup sound makes me become a mac hater more and more... Apple is so proud of the useability of its products and you cant even turn this fucking sound off without downloading a special program? In stupid WIndows it takes me 20 seconds.
  • theanimaster
    For one, those mac users in your library are clearly showing off or trying to be annoying. I've used a mac my whole life and when it comes to portables, I NEVER turn mine off. Macbooks/Powerbooks etc. go to sleep nicely with just the close of the lid, and it eliminates the hassle of having to wait for the computer to do a full reboot.

    I have an iMac and I just NEEDed to disable the startup sound because I often forget to turn the volume off upon shutdown. I have to say... Automator is CRAP when it comes to scripting a g'damn simple script -- why is it not possible to do something as simple as turning down volume upon shutdown??? Automator to me has been completely useless -- even more useless than AppleScript before it during the Classic OS times.

    Speaking of Classic OS 9... where is the shutdown/startup items folder in OS X?? (answer: there is none. At least not any like the old OS 9 had... the Starup Items in the User pref pane doesn't count as it launches all those AFTER boot, not upon boot.)
  • jaba
    after installing it, how do you access preferences?
  • theanimaster
    If you don't know how to access your System Preferences, you probably shouldn't be allowed to install things like this app (or any other app for that matter).
  • Timmer
    Does anyone know if there are problems using this v. 10.6.2?
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