Sound when opening laptop

How to Turn Off [or Customize] Sound Effects in Windows

• Chris Hoffman
  Reviewed By

  @chrisbhoffman



• Updated

Windows plays a startup sound and other sound effects regularly, and they can get obnoxious.Theyre especially annoyingon Windows 7, where Windows plays a click sound every time you switch folders in Windows Explorer. You can disable them entirelyor even set custom sound effects, if you prefer.

Update, 11/12/21: Looking to disable the startup sound on your Windows 11 PC?

RELATED: How to Disable the Startup Sound on Windows 11

How to Disable AllSound Effects

To open the Sound control panel,right-click the speaker icon in your system tray and select Sounds. You can also just navigate to Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Sound.

On the Sounds tab, click the Sound Scheme box and select No Sounds to disable sound effects entirely.If you also want to disable the sound that appears when you sign into Windows,uncheck the Play Windows Startup sound checkbox.

You can also choose to disable sound effects for specific events. For example, you might want to disable Notification sound effects while leaving Critical Battery Alarm sound effects enabled. To do this, select a sound effect in the list, click the Sound box at the bottom of the window, and click [None].

Click OK to save your changes when youre done. You can always return here and set the sound scheme back to Windows Default to restore the default sound effects.

How to Disable the Windows Explorer Click Sound

If youre using Windows 7, you maybe particularly annoyed by the sound effect that plays when you navigate to a newfolder in Windows Explorer. This particular sound effect is disabled by default on Windows 10, and for good reason.

To disable only this sound, scroll down in the list and select the Start Navigation sound effect. Click the Sounds box at the bottom of the window and select [None]. Click OK to save your changes.

How to Customize Sound Effects

If you like the sounds instead, you can customize them from here. Select an event and use the Sounds box to choose a sound file for it. You can click Test to hear a preview of thedifferent sound effects here.

To use a custom sound file, click the Browse button. Your custom sound effect file must be in the .wav file format.

To save your settings as a sound scheme, click the Save As button at the top of the window and provide a name. You can then choose your saved sound scheme from the list here in the future.

Why Do Sounds Keep Turning Back On?

You may find that sound effects automatically re-enable themselves when you customize your desktop. This occurs when you change your desktop themeusing either the old Control Panel interface on Windows 7 or the new Settings interface on Windows 10. Thats because desktop themes can include sound schemes as well as desktop background images, colors, and mouse cursor themes. However, most themes just specify the Windows Default sound scheme, re-enabling it if youve disabled it.

RELATED: How to Install Desktop Themes on Windows 10

After changing to a new theme, youll have to head back to the Sounds window to disable sound effects, if you dont want to hear them.

Changing your system sound settings will disable them in somebut not alldesktop applications. If an application continues playing sound effects even after you disable them in the Sounds control panel, youll need to disable sound effects in that applications settings window.