Turn Off That Annoying Volume Popping Sound In Mavericks [OS X Tips]

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system prefs

We’ve all been there, in a meeting or a quiet house and we just want to turn the volume down. The whole point is that we want to make things quieter.

We hit the F11 media “Volume Down” key on the keyboard to just keep quiet and all we hear is the Pop Pop Pop sound as the volume decreases.

Annoying.

Luckily, it’s super easy to fix in OS X Mavericks.

Launch System Preferences from the Dock, the Apple menu, or with an app launcher like Alfred. Click on the Sound icon to go to that preference pane.

quiet volume key

Once there, click on the Sound Effects tab at the top. Right underneath the Alert volume slider is a checkbox called “Play feedback when volume is changed.” Click that off.

Now, when you turn the volume up or down, that awful silence-shattering sound will no longer play. Ahhhh.

If you want to turn it back on (you masochist), just check the box again. Boom.

Update: As an intrepid commenter points out below, you can also hold a key down for a temporary fix. If you hold the Command key down while raising or lowering the volume, you’ll get a brief reprieve from the popping sound.

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