Revive the startup chime on your Mac

Submitted by Oliver Kennett on Saturday, February 22, 2020.
Forum
macOS & Mac Apps

Hi,

After 2016 the iconic startup chime was lost to us. For most it wasn't a big problem, for those of us who rely on audio queues it was a more substantial loss. A recent article outlines a way of turning it back on. It notes that it works for the moment but things, as with any update, can change. Copying from the article in question:

How to turn your Mac startup chime on
  • Open the Applications folder
  • Open the Utilities folder
  • Launch the Terminal application
  • Enter sudo nvram StartupMute=%00 in the terminal, and hit return

If you want to remove the chime after re-activating it, use the command sudo nvram StartupMute=%01 in terminal.

Note: I have done this on my 2018 MacBook Air and it works though the chime is very quiet and, as yet, I've not found a way of turning it up though I do believe it should be linked to what ever volume your internal speakers are set to on shutdown. Any experiences well received.

Further note: Though this is highly unlikely to brick your computer or mute your sound card, I advise caution when ever tinkering with anything in the back end and any such tinkering is done at your own risk.

Happy chiming...

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Comments

Submitted by Soren Holmgren (Denmark) on Saturday, February 22, 2020

Thank you for sharing Oliver. I was missing this and now it works on my iMac 2015 and my MacBook Pro 2018.

Submitted by Austin Nix on Saturday, February 22, 2020

I wonder if this will still work when updating the OS, or if I'll have to change it again? I ask since I used to use a bootcamp partition, and Every! Single! Time I updated Mac OS I had to change the startup disk back to Windows since that's what I was mainly using that computer for.

Submitted by Andrea Priola on Tuesday, March 3, 2020

I just tried with my 2018 MacBook Air and it doesn’t work at all. I even restarted the system a second time, but nothing, unfortunately. I don’t know if it is a problem of sounds volume, because I always keep it quite high to be sure I can hear voiceover for example when I have to switch it on at university. I can only hear the hiss of the CPU

Submitted by Beth Taurasi on Wednesday, March 4, 2020

I love this little trick. I actually did it in terminal and it worked. It really worked, and I'm amazed. I did this on a Mac mini 2018 with Catalina. I love having a startup chime as I don't have a screen ... yet.

Submitted by Andrea Priola on Thursday, March 5, 2020

Now it works, maybe I typed something wrong last time I tried it. Thanks a lot!!!