Disable system bell in msys
February 8th, 2009 by 
Phil
I am using Git on the command line in Windows via msysgit.
As with all msys installs whenever you press backspace and there is no more text to delete or you press TAB for auto-complete when there are multiple options, your speaker utters an horrendous, ugly beep.
To disable this, load msys and find out where your home directory is:
echo $HOME
Go to that directory (either in Windows or through msys) and create a new file called .inputrc
Put one line in that file:
set bell-style none
Save it and restart msys. You should now have no system bell! I’ve also seen it advised that you can disable your system bell by disabling the hardware emulation for this device in Device Manager, but this didn’t seem to work for me in Vista.
Tagged: git, msys | 
9 Comments »
Thanks
@ 1am that beep is quite loud!
Posted by Liam on June 23rd, 2009 at 12:51 amMany thanks you saved my day.
Posted by Andrey on July 19th, 2009 at 8:58 amGreat tip about $HOME.
Thanks. Any idea how to make it shut up when using git-archive?
Posted by Htbaa on July 21st, 2009 at 8:20 amNo idea, but it sounds more like a system setting to me. Check your Sounds config!
Posted by Phil on July 22nd, 2009 at 6:14 pmThanks a lot! Here we are in a new millenium +1 decade and we still have “beepy” things from the 70′s.
Posted by don on December 9th, 2009 at 5:15 pmThanks! I used curl to grab a binary (without piping) and fell into a loud hell. Now it’s a bit quieter.
Posted by Elijah Insua on December 12th, 2009 at 6:36 amThanks! The file already existed in my install (line 14). If this is the case for anyone else, just edit that line (change audible to none).
Posted by Ben on June 25th, 2011 at 3:23 pmA more direct route would be to issue this command from the msys shell:
Posted by Dylan on June 27th, 2011 at 12:43 amecho “set bell-style none” >> $HOME/.inputrc
Thanks. The beep already tortured by eardrums quite a few times, but not anymore
Posted by Fabian on September 6th, 2011 at 5:58 pm