When third-party tools don’t work, you can always count on Terminal

Jul 5, 2013 08:02 GMT  ·  By

I’ve had it with the OS X startup chime! I think we can all agree that some mornings could do without Mark Lentczner’s pounding C-major chord, and, on OS X Mountain Lion, traditional tools won’t do.

Regular users are generally afraid of Terminal, so what they do is search the web for third-party tools to help them achieve a desired behavior for their Mac.

StartNinja has had a good run. While it disables the OS X startup sound quickly and effectively, it lacks Mountain Lion compatibility.

So, if you’re running Apple’s latest Mac OS, you’re out of luck as far as this free tool is concerned.

Cocktail is a great piece of software that everyone should install and use. It even includes an option to disable the startup chime, and its creators have managed to keep it fully compatible with the newest OS X version.

The problem is if you only want to disable the startup sound, it’ll cost you $14 / €11 if you go with Cocktail.

So, what you need is a free solution. After all, Apple itself should have included the option in OS X’s System Preferences a long time ago. They’ve been reluctant to do so, which means we’re stuck with guides like this.

Without further ado, in order to eliminate the boot sound on OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion (as well as on any other Mac OS currently in circulation), follow these steps exactly.

1. Launch Terminal (from Applications > Utilities > Terminal);

2. Wait for the Terminal UI to display your computer’s name (root directory) and punch in:

code
sudo nvram SystemAudioVolume=%80
3. Hit Return/Enter;

4. Now you’ll be prompted to type in your administrator password. Do that, hit OK, and you’re done.

When you restart your Mac, the OS X boot chime should no longer play. If you somehow decide you want the boot sound back, simply fire up Terminal again and, instead of the aforementioned command, use sudo nvram -d SystemAudioVolume.

Hope this guide was helpful. If so, leave a short comment below.