A new way to bring back the Mac Startup Chime has been found!

I looking through Twitter on a normal Friday night only to see this…

STARTUP SOUND pic.twitter.com/RP2YIkAKOO — cooldude chaysegr (@chaysegr) February 21, 2020 The Mac Startup Chime is back baby!!!!

WHAT??? Ok….. I had to immediately test this out.

Run the command below in the terminal.app

sudo nvram StartupMute=%00

Reboot

I have literally rebooted 5 MacBook Pro’s multiple times just to hear that classic sound. I could not be more happy!!!!!!!

Don’t hear the sound? Check to make sure your sound is not muted. Once you bring up the volume a bit, you will then hear the chime.

If you would like to turn this off again, run the command below.

sudo nvram StartupMute=%01

Or you can reset the PRAM

This sounds familiar…

About a month after the introduction of the 2016 MacBook Pro, someone found out that you could enable the startup sound.

https://www.macobserver.com/tips/quick-tip/reenable-macbook-pro-startup-chime/

This worked for some users but stopped working early in 2017. It’s possible that Apple disabled the old way with a firmware update.

The old command was

sudo nvram BootAudio=%01

The new command is

sudo nvram StartupMute=%00

BONG!!!!!!!!

I can’t believe it. You have to understand the emotions of a true Mac fan hearing a brand new 16″ MacBook Pro producing the startup chime. The startup chime is something that has been around since 1984. To say the chime is iconic, would be an understatement to any Mac Fan.

I tested this on at least 5 different MacBook Pro’s with different BridgeOS and T1 firmware versions.

I did find a difference, the T1 Macs have the same sound as the 2017 Macbook Air and 2016 Macbook. (The final Mac Laptops to have the sound enabled by default). The T2 sound is different, it sounds a little deeper.

I would love to find out this was a hidden easter egg for 4 years!

Was this nvram value recently added? Was it hidden in plain sight for almost 4 years? I would really like to find out. The first sighting of this seems to be a Reddit Thread from 2/20/20.

https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/f6z27o/2019_16_macbook_pro_with_boot_chime_reenabled_via/

If you can find someone figuring this out before this please comment below or let me know.

Apple Removed the Startup Chime on the Redesigned 2016 15″ MacBook Pro.

When Apple removed the startup chime in 2016 most Mac fans were pretty pissed. I mean why in the heck would Apple remove it? WHY??????

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202768

Apple states in this article that

Mac models from early 2016 and earlier make a chime sound when they start up. Mac models from late 2016 and newer don’t have a startup chime, with the exception of MacBook Air (13-inch, 2017). Apple.com HT202768

Jim Reekes

In the link below is an interview with James Reekes the original creator of the startup chime.

Now that there’s no startup sound, it’s like sitting down at a restaurant and there’s no one there to greet you. It just feels strange Jim Reekes on removing the startup chime

https://9to5mac.com/2018/03/24/mac-startup-sound-creator-interview/

What’s next???

There’s only one thing left to do.

Send this command out to our entire Mac Fleet!!!

🙂

Long live the Mac Startup Chime.

How to Enable Mac Startup Sound

How to Enable Mac Startup Chime