Mac tips - Turn off your Mac’s startup sound
Ever since I bought my sweet white Mac Book, it’s existence has been threatened by a minor yet annoying little thing: the startup sound.
While the startup chime doesn’t bother me a bit, it drives my girlfriend mad, and her threats of throwing the damn thing away have been getting more and more frequent. As any Mac Book user out there knows, there’s no way to change the chime sound or disable it from within the system. Even plugging earphones before booting up fails, and if you don’t want to hear the annoying chime each morning, you’d have to carefully(or automatically) switch off the sound before shutting the computer off.
But all these worries are now gone, as today was my lucky day - randomly browsing macosxhints made me discover the little free application that’s bound to save my laptop’s life.
StartupSound.prefPane 1.1-BETA comes form Arcana Research Japan, is free and available at this link (direct download link here). Being a beta version makes it possibly unstable, but so far it worked out great on my Intel Mac Book.
this tip saved my sanity!
Mark
12 Jul 07 at 2:32 pm
Perhaps there is a way to change it to some other sound.
Big Dreams
12 Jul 07 at 8:10 pm
BigDreams, as far as I know there’s no way one can change the chime startup sound on the MacBook. It’s built-in in the firmware and unless Apple updates the firmware to make it customizable, I don’t thing you can change it.
If anyone knows better, please drop a word!
Alex
12 Jul 07 at 9:53 pm
While the startup chime may annoy some people, it’s dead useful to others. I boot into multiple OS’s, so I need the chime to tell me when to go to startup mode. I also rarely shut my system down, so I don’t get bothered with that chime every morning.
Hannah
13 Jul 07 at 1:02 am
Perhaps you should get a new girlfriend. If that’s what she’s complaining about now, wait one year. Then, you’ll wish you threw her out of the window.
Rob
13 Jul 07 at 5:55 am
or you can just remember to MUTE your speakers before shutting down. your mac will remember and be quiet when you turn it on…
gunnar
13 Jul 07 at 10:22 am
Well, gunnar, I can’t manage to remember all the time to mute the volume before shutting the computer down. I did, from time to time, but not always. My guess is that the StartupSound tool does exactly this - when you shut down the computer it saveguards the old sound volume, then mutes it, then on startup sets the volume to the old value. It’s simple yet life saving.
Alex
13 Jul 07 at 11:12 am
[…] Mac only: The signature Mac boot up sound can’t even be silenced by plugged-in headphones, but the Startup Sound preference pane does the job. If you don’t want to draw attention to yourself in class, on the plane or in the library, boot up in total quite with the Startup Sound preference pane. This plugin lowers the volume or mutes your Mac’s startup sound completely. It’s still in beta but worked like a charm on my MacBook Pro. StartupSound.prefPane is a free download for OS X only. StartupSound.prefPane [Arcana Research via Hack the Day] […]
Featured Mac Download: Silence your Mac's Startup Sound : Teknicks Blog
17 Jul 07 at 7:06 pm
[…] Mac only: The signature Mac boot up sound can’t even be silenced by plugged-in headphones, but the Startup Sound preference pane does the job. If you don’t want to draw attention to yourself in class, on the plane or in the library, boot up in total quiet with the Startup Sound preference pane. This plugin lowers the volume or mutes your Mac’s startup sound completely. It’s still in beta but worked like a charm on my MacBook Pro. StartupSound.prefPane is a free download for OS X only. StartupSound.prefPane [Arcana Research via Hack the Day] […]
Featured Mac Download: Silence your Mac's Startup Sound : Teknicks Blog
18 Jul 07 at 7:17 am
what the he…… guys that is what i looking for. I love my mac book but the fu… noise. it just terrify to my girlfriend too. we work in different shifts. i wake up early she late. so than u switch your second babe on. yes, the of the babes got a off/on button. but then after start babe number 2 babe number 1 makes a even louder sound. so why not switch babe 2 in quit modus.
felli
20 Jul 07 at 6:22 pm
you would think that if you can silence the noise, there would be a way to overlay a sound on top of it. like just have it send a signal to the hard drive to overlay a sound on top of it or something. I don’t entirely mind the chimes, but I would like to be able to customize the sounds for my own personal enjoyment.
vudu
3 Aug 07 at 1:04 am
it’s annoying, especially on a late night porn search while your girlfriend sleeps.
thanks for that i’ll download it later.
olly
23 Aug 07 at 5:55 pm
Try holding down the mute button while pressing the power button until you see the apple logo! Works for me.
Jesse
5 Sep 07 at 7:18 am
if you have optical input sound system, unplug the optical cord, turn the volume right down (or leave at least one) plug it back in and then the mac will only play at that volume on start-up
*this only works using optical because the device overrides the volume control on the computer.
jtron
15 Oct 07 at 4:48 pm
That would be nice too : GirlfriendLovingStartupSound.prefPane 1.0-BETA
(Kidding, I know that problem !
Quentin
27 Nov 07 at 1:44 pm
You know, you should tell your girlfriend that the BONG you hear when you turn your Mac on means that it’s working properly.
Blah de blah
21 Dec 07 at 10:42 am
In case anyone wonders, the chime being impossible to ‘mute’ by plugging in headphones is a feature, not a bug. On my iBook I could avoid the chime by plugging in something in the headphone jack, but with the advent of the Intel Macs, this stopped working. Covering the speakers of the MacBook Pro doesn’t help in muting the sound (it mostly comes out of the fan exhaust).
If the above utility doesn’t work, there’s also something called “Psst” that does the same.
Lex
17 Jan 08 at 4:33 am
i just turned down the volume before i switched it off
then when i turned it back on i put it back up and since then its never made the sound and i dont have to turn it down again or mute it
who knows
maybe i got a lucky break
sir sound-free
1 Feb 08 at 1:30 pm
what the hell is wrong with you people? who shuts down their mac? one of the most wonderful glorious aspects of owning a mac is that you NEVER HAVE TO SHUT IT DOWN. sleep is your friend…
Sure, it might need a reset every few weeks, but using sleep has many benefits:
1. you don’t have to tell it to shut down - you can close the lid (for notebooks), press the power button, then “s”. or just set it to go to sleep after a half hour.
2.it wakes MUCH quicker than it boots up. less time waiting for you, all your apps can still be open, waiting where you left them.
and
3. you don’t have to listen to the boot chime any more!!
man, shutting down and booting up your mac everyday, is like driving your car to work everyday, but running alongside it all the way there - you have a great technology and convenience, but you’re not using it!
the only thing you’ll find (as I have with a macbook) is in a library, even when you open the book from sleep, the optical drive still does its disc check which is almost as noisy!
get me an app that disables that… PLEASE!!
sam Kivi
8 Feb 08 at 3:44 am
Hi Sam Kivi
I agree with you, I would never shut down my mac. But, what about the “doesn’t wake up from sleep mode” issue?
http://forums.macnn.com/69/macbook-pro-and-powerbook/194525/sometimes-my-mac-wont-wake-up/
Since 2 months i’ve this problem and my Apple rep could not fix it.
Well, maybe i’m opening another thread
Gianni
23 Feb 08 at 2:21 pm
what the hell is wrong with you people?
Nothing
who shuts down their mac?
I do. Got a problem with that?
Please get over yourselves with your Holier than thou, this is the ONLY way to use a Mac statements. If there wasn’t a need for this preference then there wouldn’t be so many posts online asking how to turn the Bong sound off.
Leopard User
18 Mar 08 at 5:11 pm
shutting down your mac saves energy. that should be reason enough to turn it off.
pantsheart
21 Mar 08 at 6:22 am
amen to that, pantsheart - and happy belated Earth Day to you…
fiercelover
30 Mar 08 at 10:30 am
That.. damn.. sound!
leopard
1 Apr 08 at 1:38 am
Unfortunately it doesn’t work to me… Maybe the stable version will fit…
chris
19 Apr 08 at 8:49 pm
this never worked for me (core 2 duo, tiger or leopard), but I found something that finally did work called “Psst” and it’s free:
http://www.satsumac.com/Psst.php
Ben
26 Apr 08 at 9:58 pm
Psst worked for me too, on a MBP 17″ (Core 2 Duo & 10.5.2)
Type17
14 May 08 at 5:12 pm
Works for me on Leopard, 10.5.2
Thanks!
Davy
15 May 08 at 5:55 am
well you can shut your computer down wen you wont be needing it for a long period of time, whether that be over night, or if you will be out of town for a few days..what ever the case is. i leave mine in sleep when i am back and forth during the day to save energy, and shut it down overnight to save even more..
whatever works for everyone is what you should do, not force your own comfort zone on others!
and i usually mute my computer before i shut ‘er down… its in the process…
volume down
control+eject
shut down
lol but this app will help thanks!
devin
19 May 08 at 3:15 am
Thanks man. It worked like charm for me. I have MacBook Pro 15″ 2.4-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Raj
9 Jun 08 at 9:56 am
You are obviously going about it all wrong. You need to alter your behavior to conform to the way that Apple intends you to use your computer. Either a) stop shutting down your computer; b) turn the sound off before you shut down; or c) use a small sharp stick to “disable” your girlfriend’s ear drums. Problem solved.
Daniel
20 Jun 08 at 12:47 am