How to disable beep (beep off does not work)?

Hello Fellow Matlabbers,

I am using Matlab 2013a on OS X. The beeps being emitted by the editor are driving me crazy (especially while using headphones). After running "beep off" Matlab appears to believe that beeps are off:

>> s = beep

s =

off

However, when I type things like "case" or have partial parentheses I still hear beeps. Is there some other variable I can turn off? I really don't want to have to switch over to emacs as my editor, but these beeps are horrible.

Thank you, Kyle

[Andri M. Gretarsson]

http://www.heystephenwood.com/2012/07/how-to-disable-annoying-mac-osx-tab.html

Answer 1

[Sean de Wolski]

You can change the the error sound file to something that does not have any sounds.

This way when anything that emits a beep fires, nothing plays. beep off only shuts it off for errors.

[Kyle]

Ah, does the sound file have to be changed at the OS level, or is there a Matlab-only way of changing the sound file?

Thank you!

[Kyle]

Sean, your answer should probably be accepted (although just turning down the OS alert volume works as well), but I'm afraid Mathworks will take longer to read the question/complaint if I accept the answer.

For anyone who has this same issue, I made the change at the OS level by turning down the system alert volume.

Dear Mathworks, Please change this. Matlab makes too many sounds for it to be connected to the OS-level alert sound. It is very disappointing to no longer be able to hear when I receive email just because I want to quietly code in Matlab.

Thank you, Kyle

[Sean de Wolski]

Hi Kyle,

I'll add your notes to the enhancement request asking for this functionality.

[Stefan Karlsson]

Amazing! After 15 years of working with Matlab, after seing the issue of the beep popping up and just going away over and over again... finally someone at Mathworks who listens, and not just throws "beep off" at you.

This bug has been with Matlab for decades, even though it has been repeatedly reported, responded to by users, and systematically ignored.

PLEASE FIX IT!

[Sean de Wolski]

Hi Stefan,

I know you're not looking for this, but one possible option would be to use movefile to replace the beep sound with silence in your startup.m file and then to restore it to standard beep in your finish.m file. This way when MATLAB is active the beep is disabled and when it is not, the OS has its standard error sound.

[Abel Brown]

how do i use movefile to remove the beep??

[Richard Rast]

What's the status on this? I shouldn't have to change my system notification settings to code in Matlab. It's been many, many years!

[Pedro Busc]

I'm also still waiting... Dumb programmers team

[Ethan the CodeMaster Red pill taker]

still no fix in 2022!!

I wanna disable the annoying sound when i at the buttom of the command window but still like the error warning when running codes.

[Grant]

Oh please fix this - drives me crazy too!

[snj]

Same!

Answer 2

[Daniel Shub]

I believe BEEP OFF turns off the beep when there is an error. Partial parenthesis are not an error (although if you run code with them it will cause an error). I don't have MATLAB in front of me, but there is an option under preferences about BEEP and parenthesis.

[Stefan Karlsson]

There is NO way to turn off the beep. To illustrate this, go to the command prompt (with all your beep settings offed) and just push the down key. This loops through the command history, and when you reach the end of it... you guessed it... BEEP

Answer 3

[Brandon Ginley]

Hi, if you check the preferences (this is for MATLAB 2015B) there is an option, as another answer mentions, to turn it off. Please see the attached screenshot, where you can turn the noise off by going to preferences, and then to keyboard settings, and setting the delimiter matching to none instead of beep. This turned the noise off for my console.

[Pedro Busc]

DOES NOOOOT WORK

f3 Beep f3 beep f3 beep beep beeeeeeeeeeeeep...... lazy and dumb programmers