How to enable the startup chime on recent Macs

corlin · February 22, 2020, 2:55pm

One feature that many users miss on more recent Mac models is the startup chime. Although once a plague in labs and classrooms, there’s something deeply emotive about that chord.

Read Here:

ace · February 22, 2020, 3:35pm

Can some folks with new Macs confirm that this works? I’ll run something in TidBITS, but I can’t test it on anything recent.

corlin · February 22, 2020, 3:53pm

Works great on my Mac mini (Late 2018).
Running Mojave.

Shamino · February 22, 2020, 4:00pm

This is good news. I’m pleasantly surprised that Apple merely disabled the feature with an NVRAM setting and didn’t actually delete the feature from their firmware.

I’m now wondering, however, if it may be possible to install an EFI firmware extension to allow playing your own custom sound at startup. It would end up running later in the startup sequence, but given how fast it takes to go from POST to running the macOS boot loader, you probably wouldn’t notice the delay.

jwking · February 22, 2020, 9:41pm

Works on my 2017 iMac, also running Mojave
The sound volume is dependent upon the setting for Audio Output so if it is muted or low you may not hear the chime

Thanks Corlin for the link’

Jerry

chirano · February 22, 2020, 10:00pm

I can confirm it works with the 16-inch MBP, as mentioned in the article.

ryoichi · February 22, 2020, 11:02pm

Thank you for this. You have no idea how much I missed the startup sound. It works on my late 2018 Mac mini running Catalina 10.15.4 beta.

alvarnell · February 23, 2020, 3:12am

I became aware of this back on Jan 21st and has been working on my iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2017) or iMac18,3 ever since, running macOS Sierra through Catalina.

aforkosh · February 23, 2020, 4:50am

It works on my 2 Macs:
a late 2015 27" Retina 5K iMac
a 2018 Touchbar 13-inch MacBook Pro

chrischram · February 24, 2020, 10:57pm

I can confirm that this trick works on my 2017 iMac running Catalina, but as Jerry in FL noted, the Mac’s audio settings influence the loudness.

jshoelmer · February 25, 2020, 3:02am

Just tried it on my 2018 Macbook Air and it works great.

csenior · February 25, 2020, 3:54am

Thanks for the tip!
Works great on my 2018 15" MBP running Mojave.

D_J_Pinnington · February 25, 2020, 10:11am

Works fine on my MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019) under Catalina. Thank you!

hmcnally · February 25, 2020, 3:31pm

Confirmed: iMac (Retina 4K, 21.5-inch, 2019) running 10.14.6 Mojave.

bb1 · February 28, 2020, 6:15pm

Did NOT work on iMac Pro running 10.14.6 Mojave.

paolo · February 28, 2020, 7:08pm

Yes it works on my 2017 iMac 21.5 in screen in High Sierra, Mojave and Sierra.
But would the operating system affect that terminal command anyway?

ace · February 28, 2020, 8:26pm

I don’t know. The command is clearly changing an NVRAM parameter, but it’s possible that the operating system version is related to whether or not that parameter is changeable.

alvarnell · February 29, 2020, 12:57am

No, not in any way.

alvarnell · February 29, 2020, 1:14am

The command is known to work with any 2016+ model Mac and isn’t needed on anything before that. You either have the sound turned down or at least one user needed to disconnect a second monitor in order for it to work.

bb1 · February 29, 2020, 4:09am

I assure you the sound is not turned down. But I do have two displays.