3

On my M1 Macbook Pro (Monterey), I sometimes get a sound effect when pressing certain key combinations. For example, if I open up Finder and then press Ctrl+B I will hear my generic system sound effect. Presumably, it is warning me that this keyboard shortcut doesn't do anything.

But this sound effect also plays with some functional keyboard shortcuts. For example, with some shortcuts that I have defined in the application IntelliJ as well as other apps.

I would just like to disable this altogether. I don't need to hear a sound when I've pressed the wrong keyboard shortcut. Not seeing the desired behavior is enough to warn me I've pressed the wrong shortcut. And randomly hearing this sound effect when I use valid shortcuts is often confusing me and causing me to look around my screen for some warning or alert since that is what such a sound effect is usually associated with.

I've tried going to System Preferences -> Sound -> Sound Effects and disabled "Play user interface sound effects". This disabled sounds such as moving a file in finder but did not disable keyboard shortcut sound effects. I looked through the "Keyboard" and "Accessibility" preference panes and couldn't find any other relevant settings.

Just to be sure this is an OS feature and not a feature of an app I installed, I tried booting in safe mode. I can confirm the issue persists in safe mode and is thus an OS-level feature that I am trying to disable.

Improve this question

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
3

When you search the web for "apple disable feedback sound" you find a MacRumors forum thread on the same topic:

I have turned off sound on startup, interface sound effects and feedback, yet if I use - for example - backspace or another key which cannot do anything in a window, it makes the 'boop' noise. I cannot select 'no sound' in the audio options, yet I still get these [...]

The first response on that thread seems to have fixed the issue for the question asker:

go to System Preferences > Sound > Sound Effects
turn the Alert volume all the way down
uncheck Play user interface sound effects (you've done this already)
uncheck Play feedback when the volume is changed

Improve this answer
2
  • 1
    Thanks for the response. Turning the alert volume down has the side effect of changing the alert volume for alerts in general, which I do not want. I just want to remove these unwanted alerts for shortcuts. OSX thinks these shortcuts are invalid when they actually are valid, and that is the issue. Altering alerts in general is just trading one issue for another. And "Play feedback when the volume is changed" is not relevant here
    – Matt Groth
    Commented May 16, 2022 at 18:38
  • Having the same issue, and by turning the Sounds effects you are disabling notifications sounds, such as DM's from slack etc
    – krizajb
    Commented Jan 8 at 10:28

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .