How to Disable Steam’s Annoying Achievement Notification Sound

Steam users can now enjoy their gaming sessions without the interruption of the platform’s achievement notification sound, thanks to a recent update.

The Sound of Achievement

Imagine this: you’ve finally defeated Alduin the World-Eater in Skyrim. As you watch his bones burn bright and then crumble to ash, surrounded by the souls of Sovngarde’s mightiest heroes, what sound do you hear? “Blink blink blonk!” That’s the sound of Steam notifying you that you’ve just unlocked the Dragonslayer achievement.

This cheerfully rinky-dink sound effect has been a feature of Steam’s new Big Picture Mode UI for a while, and with the arrival of the Steam Deck, it’s become all too familiar to gamers.

Now, it also plays in Desktop Mode whenever that little rectangle appears in the corner of your screen to announce an achievement or the completion of a game download.

Silence is Golden

If you find this notification sound as grating as I do, you’ll be relieved to know that you can now turn it off. A recent update from Valve has added a toggle in the notification settings that allows users to turn on/off sounds for non-critical notifications.

To access this setting, simply go to:

• Steam > Settings > Notifications
• Hit the “Play a sound when a notification toast is displayed” toggle.

By the way, these notifications are referred to as “toasts,” a term that only adds to my disdain for them.

Now that you know how to remove the blink blink blonk from your interface, do you know what’s worse than this unwarranted sound? Yes, AI-generated content on the platform.

But don’t worry, Valve actually made a statement about AI content on Steam, and here’s their take on it.