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Chime
The startup/shutdown chime used in Mac computers and on iPhone 14 or newer models indicates that the Mac or iPhone has successfully passed the diagnostic tests at startup. On iPhone 14 models, it also has a shutdown sound.
Enabling/disabling the startup/shutdown chime
Mac
Through the Terminal
To disable the chime, type in the following Terminal command: sudo nvram SystemAudioVolume=%80
To enable the chime, type in the following Terminal command: sudo nvram -d SystemAudioVolume
This is the only method to disable/enable the chime in macOS Catalina or earlier.
macOS Big Sur and macOS Monterey
Since macOS Big Sur, the startup chime is again turned on by default. To modify it, choose Apple Menu -> System Preferences..., then click Sound. In the Sound Effects pane, use the “Play sound on startup” setting to turn the startup sound on or off.
macOS Ventura or newer
Choose Apple Menu -> System Settings..., then click Sound. Use the “Play sound on startup” setting to turn the startup sound on or off.
iPhone
iOS 16 or newer
Note: the steps only apply to the iPhone 14 lineup.
In Settings, scroll down to Accessibility. Under Hearing, tap Audio/Visual. Toggle on the switch next to Power/Turn On & Off Sounds.
Extracting the chimes
Regular Intel Macs
The startup (and attach) chimes are located in the UEFI firmware. To extract it, use UEFITool. Then, search for the BootChimeAudio section. Finally, extract the Raw Section inside it by right clicking on it, and selecting Extract body.... Since it is a CoreAudio file, make sure to add the .caf extension on the file. The similar method applies to the attach chimes, but the section has no codename on it. To easily look for the chimes, after opening the UEFI firmware in UEFITool, select Action -> Search.... From here select Text and search for caff. Make sure to disable the Unicode option.
On T2 Macs, the UEFI Firmware contains the older 1998 chime.
The chimes are CoreAudio (CAF) files with the following attributes: 16-bit, Mono at 44100 Hz with the IMA QT ADPCM Audio (ima4) codec.
T2 Macs
On T2 Macs, the chime is located in bridgeOS in /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/BridgeAccessibilitySupport.framework/AXEFIAudio_VoiceOver_Boot.aiff. While it has the .aiff extension the chime is actually encoded in the Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC) in a CoreAudio (.caf) container. The attributes are: 16-bit, Stereo at 48000 Hz with ALAC.
On Macs with bridgeOS 4.6 or earlier, the boot chime file name is the same, but the file is in an Audio Interchange File Format (AIFF) container and the attributes are different: 16-bit, Mono at 24000 Hz in the IMA QT ADPCM Audio (ima4) codec.
The charging chime is stored in /System/Library/Audio/Sounds/connect_power.aif. It is in an AIFF container with the following attributes: 16-bit, Stereo at 44100 Hz in the twos codec.
Apple Silicon Macs and iPhone devices
iPhones and Macs with Apple Silicon use raw audio files to play the startup/charging chimes. They are located in the iOS/macOS IPSW in Firmware/embeddedaudioresources/image4.
To extract them, first extract the img4 header, and from here, open Audacity, click File -> Import -> Raw data and specify the parameters listed below. To export, click File -> Export -> Export as WAV/MP3/OGG/other. Some devices use the same chime despite being put into separate files.
The parameters:
Apple Silicon Macs
- (j274/j375c/j375d)-boot-chime.im4p:
32 bit PCM, Mono at 24000 Hz. - (j293/j413/j493)-(attach/boot)-chime.im4p:
32 bit PCM, Stereo at 48000 Hz. - (j313)-(attach/boot)-chime.im4p:
32 bit PCM, Stereo at 24000 Hz. - (j456/j457)-boot-chime.im4p:
32 bit PCM, 6 channels at 16000 Hz. - (j314c/j314s/j316c/j316s)-(attach/boot)-chime.im4p:
32 bit PCM, 6 channels at 24000 Hz.
iPhones
The reason why the iPhone chime has 3 channels is due to the fact that the chime also does haptic feedback through the Taptic Engine. If the chime is on, vibration settings are ignored for both the startup and shutdown sounds. This means that if the vibration setting is turned off in Settings -> Accessibility -> Touch -> Vibration, the haptics will still play even if the setting is off.
The shutdown sound is located in /System/Library/Audio/UISounds/DeviceShutdown.caf. It has the following attributes: 32-bit, Stereo at 48000 Hz in the PCM S24 LE (s24l) codec, and was encoded with Amadeus Pro.
Other devices
AirTags
16 bit PCM, ? channels at ? Hz.
AirPods Pro (2nd generation) Case
- AUCH/AUER/AUFM/AUFR/AULB/AUPC/AUPS/AUUT.bin
32 bit PCM, Mono at 8000 Hz.
