How to disable the terminal bell in PuTTY

The terminal bell is designed to grab attention, and it succeeds a little too well when a remote shell, editor, or TUI app keeps sending bell characters. Disabling it in PuTTY stops the audible beep (and any visual flash) so long-running sessions stay quiet in offices, calls, or late-night troubleshooting.

In terminal emulators, the “bell” is typically triggered by the BEL control character (ASCII 0x07, often written as \a). PuTTY decides how to handle that signal (play a sound, flash, or do nothing) using the bell settings under its terminal options.

PuTTY settings are stored per saved session profile, so disabling the bell for one profile does not automatically affect others. Updating Default Settings changes the default behavior for new sessions created afterward, while existing saved sessions keep their own bell settings until updated.

1. Launch PuTTY.
2. Select the saved session profile under Saved Sessions or select Default Settings to change PuTTY defaults.

   Using Default Settings applies the bell change to future sessions created after the save.

3. Click Load.
4. Select Terminal in the category tree.
5. Select Bell under Terminal.
6. Select None (bell disabled) under Set the style of bell.

   Disabling the bell removes both audible and visual notifications from remote programs, including prompts that intentionally use the bell for attention.

7. Select Session in the category tree.
8. Click Save to store the change in the selected session name.

   Saving updates only the currently loaded profile name, so repeat these steps for other saved sessions that should also be silent.

9. Click Open to start the connection with the updated bell setting.
10. Trigger a bell character in the remote shell to confirm no alert is produced.

    $ printf '\a'