Silence the Trash and screenshot sounds on Mac

Two macOS sounds get on people's nerves faster than any others: the paper-crumple when you empty the Trash, and the camera shutter every screenshot fires off. Both belong to the same "interface sound effects" family, so one checkbox silences the pair — and if it's only the shutter you're after, there's a screenshot-only route too.

Silence both with one switch

1. Open System Settings → Sound.
2. Find the Sound Effects section near the bottom.
3. Untick Play user interface sound effects.

Empty the Trash — no crumple. Press Shift-Cmd-4 and grab a selection — no shutter. This is one setting covering both, along with the other interface noises like the send-mail whoosh and the failed-drag thud. It behaves the same on macOS 13 Ventura, 14 Sonoma, and 15 Sequoia, and your music and video keep playing at full volume throughout.

The Terminal equivalent

If you'd rather set it in one line, the checkbox maps to a single key. Turning it off silences the Trash, the screenshot, and the rest in one go:

# Silence Trash, screenshot, and other interface sounds
defaults write NSGlobalDomain com.apple.sound.uiaudio.enabled -bool false
killall screencaptureui

# Undo — bring the sounds back
defaults write NSGlobalDomain com.apple.sound.uiaudio.enabled -bool true
killall screencaptureui

The killall screencaptureui restarts the screenshot service so the shutter falls silent on your next capture rather than the one after. The Trash sound obeys the change immediately.

What the switch does and doesn't touch

Because the Trash and screenshot sounds live in the same interface-effects group, macOS gives them one shared switch rather than a mute for each. Turning it off also quiets the send-mail whoosh, the move-to-Trash swoosh, and the rejected-drop thud — the full set of noises the system makes as you click around.

What stays audible is everything that isn't "interface chrome": the alert beep, notification sounds, and all app and media audio. So this is a targeted change — the two sounds you came to silence go quiet, your Mac does not. If later you decide you miss the shutter as a capture confirmation, the same checkbox (or the undo command above) brings the whole set back in one move.

Does it stay off after a restart or update?

Yes. This is a saved preference, not a temporary session toggle, so once you untick Play user interface sound effects it stays off through restarts, sleep, and logging out. Both the Trash crumple and the screenshot shutter remain silent until you deliberately turn effects back on.

macOS updates are the one thing worth a quick glance. Point releases leave your Sound settings alone, but a big upgrade occasionally resets a handful of preferences to their defaults, and interface sounds can be among them. If the crumple or shutter reappears after installing a major version, it's not a fault — just revisit System Settings → Sound and untick the box again, or re-run the Terminal command. Because the setting lives in your account, it also travels with you if you migrate to a new Mac with Migration Assistant, so you rarely have to think about it more than once.

If you manage several Macs and want the setting to stick everywhere, the Terminal command is the reliable way to reapply it after a major upgrade — a single line you can keep handy and paste when needed. On your own machine, one glance at the Sound panel after a big update is all it takes to confirm the crumple and shutter are still silenced.

Clean up the screenshots themselves

Silence is half the battle — a floating thumbnail and a cluttered desktop are the other half. If your screenshots pile up, see how to change where screenshots save on Mac to send them to a dedicated folder.