How To Enable the Mac Startup Chime on your 2016+ MacBook Pro!

43 thoughts on “How To Enable the Mac Startup Chime on your 2016+ MacBook Pro!”

1. I just found out about this. I literally teared up. There had been efforts to make this happen a couple of years ago, but it didn’t work on my MBP 2016. It works now. Thank you.

2. Turns out I entered %01 instead of %00. My bad.
   Did work but barely hear even with volume all the way up. Same when I reconnect speakers. Chime comes from internal speaker I believe. I reset PRAM with no change, still barely audible. Oh well. I tried

   1. Be sure to max out both volume sliders and check the popup above Alert Volume.

3. No joy on my 2017 21 inch iMac, 3.6 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 running Catalina (10.15.3 (19D76)). Did it 4 times. Have external speakers installed. Disconnected but still nothing

   1. Terry, the good news is that I know for sure this works on a 2017 iMac.

      Few things to test, make sure the OS volume is up not just the external speaker volume.

      Also make sure that you type in the command exactly as it’s shown, as it’s case sensitive.

      If all that does not work, reset the PRAM and try again.

      Good Luck.

      1. Thanks Mr. Mac
         I copied the command off your web page and pasted in. I turned up the volume to max both with speakers and without. I’ll reset PRAM and try again. I’ll let you know. My wife has a new MB Pro so I’ll try in hers too

4. Oh booooo, this doesn’t work on a 12″ MacBook -___-

   1. Hey Justin, your 12″ Macbook should chime by default! (As long as it’s a 2015 or 2016 Model)

      Also, be sure to check your volume. If your volume is muted, you will not hear the startup chime.

      If you have a 2017 Model, you would have to run the command.

      1. Ah! Interesting. This model doesn’t have default chime. Issued the command and rebooted twice before posting the comment. Did it once more. Nothing. Did it again… and… it worked. Don’t understand but am not going to argue. Love having the chime back!! 😀

         1. Awesome, I’m glad it worked!

5. I wondered why everyone was going crazy this week; I remember seeing a post about an nvram change right after the first 2016 MB’s disabled the chime. I didn’t realize that one (BootAudio) stopped working after the 2017 models. (I completely skipped the butterfly generation, so I’m still chiming along on my mid-2013 MBP.)

6. This question on Apple Stack Exchange from August of 2018 makes reference to changing this, but doesn’t include specific instructions: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/332957/nvram-command-not-found

   1. I wonder if they were trying to run the old command.

      sudo nvram BootAudio=%01

      The thing is, nvram will let you store incorrect. So lets say I ran that command like this

      sudo nvram BoooooootAudio=%01

      It would store that value, but just not do anything with it.

      To view nvram settings use

      nvram -p

      You can delete the value with this command

      sudo nvram -d BoooooootAudio

7. This was known way back… at least 2 years ago, I tried it back then but never get to hear it because I rarely turn off my Mac… http://www.macdailynews.com/2018/06/08/rip-mac-startup-chime/amp/

   1. Yes, but the old command was different. The one referenced is.

      sudo nvram BootAudio=%01

      The new command is

      sudo nvram StartupMute=%00

      It was reported that the first command stopped working not long after it was found.

8. The band Japanther made a song out of the Mac start up sound called “Dump the Body in Rikki Lake.”

9. Very old news folks.
   https://betanews.com/2016/11/01/enable-macbook-pro-startup-chime/

   1. Yes, you used to be able to do this with the following command.

      sudo nvram BootAudio=%01

      This command stopped working.

      The new command is

      sudo nvram StartupMute=%00

      1. Yes, another popular one has been:
         sudo nvram SystemAudioVolume=%80 or =%00 (or other values to set the desired volume level).

10. BTW, does this survive a PRAM reset?

    1. Good question. Clearing the PRAM does clear out this change and resets the Mac to have a silent boot.

       1. Thanks for confirming. How unfortunate given that one use for the boot sound is to know when the PRAM is actually cleared (and sometimes need to do it more than once in a row).

       2. Someone posted that there might be a way to update the boot.plist to make this survive a PRAM/NVRAM reset here:
          https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/how-to-enable-the-classic-startup-chime-on-newer-macs.2224668/post-28241343
          possibly by by trying to putt “… “StartupMute=%00” inside kernel flags. ”

          If anyone has the know-how and can confirm how to make this happen, please to post over on that thread.

11. Have not tried it yet but does this this work on 2019 iMac too (not Pro with T2 chip)?

    1. I can confirm that this works on all MacBook Pro models. I just tested this on a 2017 iMac and it worked! I am almost sure that some one posted up that this works on the 2017 iMac Pro and the 2019 iMac.

       Only thing left is to test this on a Mac Mini and 2019 Mac Pro.

       1. Great news. I’ll give it a try.

       2. Found one confirmation that it works on Mac Pro, here:
          https://9to5mac.com/2020/02/21/bring-back-mac-startup-chime-command/#comment-4805171942
          ” René Bonvanie • 2 days ago

          Works on my Mac Pro 2019 (7,1)”

          1. works on my imac pro 1,1

             yay!

       3. I can confirm that it works on my 2019 iMac 27″ 3.6Ghz 8-core Intel Core i9 running Catalina 10.15.3. Yay!

          1. Thanks Hankers. I am running Mojave ATM so hope it works there too (from what I read for others, it should).

             1. Just wanted to confirm that IT WORKS on my 27″ 2019 iMac 3.6Ghz 8-core Intel Core i9 running Mojave 10.14.4!!!!

       4. It works on my 2018 Mac Mini.

          With one little chime (okay, four, after I kept rebooting my Mac), my life is just that little bit happier. Ahhhh.

       5. doesn’t work for me on my 2017 5k iMac, Any workaround ?

          1. Hey Nicholas, I tested this on the exact same model iMac. Go into the OS and turn up the volume, then restart. Do you hear it now?

             If not reset the PRAM and then try the command again. I know you can get this working 🙂

             1. Thanks but nothing seems to work.
                System volume is up high.
                Pram reset and command also done but still same?

12. I have know about it sine at least 1/24/2020 and my iMac18,3 has been chiming ever since. I cannot access the source at the moment, (an Apple site that seems to be down for the count) but I will post more when I am able.

    1. Hey Al!!!

       Wow that’s a month back! It would be really interesting to find the actual source for where this was found.

       Please do post up if you can find your original source!

       1. Sorry, the person I found out from could only say that he “simply came across it on the web somewhere, and thought I’d give it a try.” His post is dated Jan 21, so had to be even earlier than that.

       2. That person now recalls that he read it on MacRumors and I belive I found it in this Jan 21 reply https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/whats-your-action-once-youve-received-your-new-mac-pro.2220428/post-28161448. It does source Reddit, so there is apparently an earlier report somewhere there.

          1. I went looking for it on Reddit and found a reply in this thread:
             https://i.reddit.com/r/macpro/comments/er3th0/does_the_2019_model_have_a_startup_chime/

             Does give absolute date, only relative date of “1 month ago”.
             “SINdicate 1 point 1 month ago

             Wild guess: sudo nvram StartupMute=%100”

             1. Does *not give…

             2. BTW, first earliest source (so far) that mentions = %00 instead of %100 is here:
                https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/whats-your-action-once-youve-received-your-new-mac-pro.2220428/post-28161448

             3. found by bogdanw
                https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/bring-back-mac-os-startup-sound-2016-macs.2224371/post-28237717

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