How to Enable the Classic Startup Chime on Newer Macs

The discovery of a simple Terminal command that brings back the classic startup chime on newer Macs has gone viral in recent days. Apple disabled the startup sound on new Macs in 2016, and while a couple of tricks have worked in the past to get the chime back, updates to macOS appear to have stopped them working.

However, the latest trick – first shared in the MacRumors Forums by BigMcGuire – appears to have a high success rate, although depending on your Mac model, your mileage may vary.

If you yearn for that classic Mac sound, follow these steps to re-instate it.

1. Launch the Terminal app, which can be found in the Applications/Utilities folder. This will open a Terminal window and a command prompt for you to begin typing.
2. Input the following command and then press Return: sudo nvram StartupMute=%00
3. Enter your admin user password when prompted.
4. Close Terminal, then restart your Mac.

Make sure the volume is up, and with a little bit of luck, you'll hear that soothing F-sharp chord sound the next time your Mac boots up.

If you want to get rid of the chime after re-activating it, simply repeat the steps above but replace the Terminal command in step 2 with the following: sudo nvram StartupMute=%01.

The iconic chiming startup sound was originally made to indicate that diagnostic tests had found no hardware or software issues. A similar sound accompanied almost every Mac boot sequence since 1991 and the most recent F-sharp chord incarnation was first used in the iMac G3.

Originally, a C major chord was recorded by Apple engineer Jim Reekes using a Korg keyboard, but what most users will hear these days is a pitch-shifted version of the sound made by the Macintosh Quadra family of professional computers, first released in 1991.