How do I turn the beep slash bell off in cygwin?

Question

The system beep/bell happens frequently (ie, when I type a few letters then type tab to autocomplete when there are a few options).

How can I turn this off?

I googled it and tried:

set bell-style none (the command went through but nothing changed)

and

setterm -blength 0 (got a bash command not found)

Thanks!

If you typed those at a bash prompt, that's not where either one goes. See Emerick Rogul's answer. — Dennis Williamson, Nov 13 '09 at 21:12

Emerick Rogul · Accepted Answer · 2009-12-28T21:34:07.863

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Add set bell-style none to .inputrc in your home directory. You need to start a new shell for this to take effect; that may be why your test didn't work.

edited Dec 28 '09 at 21:34

answered Nov 13 '09 at 20:34

Emerick Rogul

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I've had this in .inputrc for some time now (across reboots even) and I still get the bell. Both in mintty *and* xterm. – exhuma Mar 12 '16 at 08:37
Great! I have to do this on every account that I ssh to. Thanks! – Luc M Jan 01 '18 at 01:41

score 23 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 16 '16 at 16:59

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The default terminal mintty has built-in options to control the terminal bell.

Right-click on the background and click "Options..."
Select the "Terminal" section.
Change the "Bell" dropdown to "none"

Note: Here you can also enable or disable the visible bell (terminal flashing) and to highlight the taskbar icon on a bell ring.

answered Aug 16 '16 at 16:59

Steven

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This is definitely the _best_answer... Using the answer from @Emerick works... Until you ssh somewhere... – Lucas Nov 02 '16 at 20:41
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@Lucas: You can `set bell-style none` on the machine you ssh to as well... – DevSolar Jul 14 '18 at 12:39

score 6 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 13 '09 at 20:30

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Cut the wire to your speaker. :-)

answered Nov 13 '09 at 20:30

James Cronen

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This is the more portable option, since it works with any shell. ;-) – Emerick Rogul Nov 13 '09 at 20:35
And next time, get a motherboard that connects your speaker via a header, so that you can just unplug it. – Kaz Feb 23 '13 at 05:00
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You could also poke your ear drums with a needle. That works for all shells and platforms as well. – shikhanshu May 06 '16 at 19:06

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 15 '20 at 12:23

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An alternative solution that doesn't seem to be mentioned here is:

Right click on the header of the Cygwin window and chose Options...:

In the options menu, under the Terminal tab, choose "no beep":

This should take effect immediately without having to restart Cygwin.

answered Jul 15 '20 at 12:23

Svend Hansen

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Good answer but this solution *was* posted (albeit without the nice screenshots) a few years previously: https://stackoverflow.com/a/38980567/1640661 – Anthony Geoghegan Dec 10 '21 at 22:36
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Ah, you're right. I guess I must have just read the accepted answer, and missed that one was explaining the same as I was :) – Svend Hansen Jan 16 '22 at 19:20

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Oct 09 '13 at 17:51

I experienced a series of beeps when I would cat a particular file. The above tips did not silence the bell. In my case, the beeps were due to bullet points that had been copy/pasted into the file. Replacing the bullets with dashes stopped the beeping.

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Nov 14 '09 at 07:01

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Use mintty. Among many other advantages over the usual console, the bell is off by default.

answered Nov 14 '09 at 07:01

ak.

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Care to elaborate on how to use mintty and what advantages it offers? – shikhanshu May 06 '16 at 19:07

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Aug 09 '19 at 06:49

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Path to '.inputrc:

'C:\cygwin64\home\<username>\.inputrc

answered Aug 09 '19 at 06:49

zombinary

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How do I turn the beep slash bell off in cygwin?

7 Answers7