A few days ago, seemingly out of the blue, the startup chime began loudly announcing its presence when I turn on my MBP. Here’s the thing, I’ve done nothing to initiate this. I’m aware of the ability to reactivate the chime but I’ve not done so. It’s okay by me that it’s back but I’m curious as to why and if any one else is having a similar experience.
macOS Catalina 10.15.7
MacBook Pro (16-inch 2019)
Back in 2016, Apple started disabling the startup chime, but it turns out that, for many (but not all) Macs, the chime was disabled, not deleted. On those systems where the code wasn’t deleted, it is possible to set an NVRAM parameter to turn it back on:
I used this on my 2018 Mac mini soon after I bought it this past October, so I’ve been hearing startup chimes since then.
It would appear, from your message, that Apple decided to turn it back on in the latest Catalina update.