iPhone stuck in "headphones" mode

I've had this problem today, I found the answer on YouTube after trying everything else and being told the phone probably needs a new jack plug socket fitting. All I did was go to settings/sounds/ringtones and change the ringtone a few times whilst changing the volume up and down then back to your chosen ringtone, job done.

I know this is an extremely old forum, but to this day users are still most likely having this problem. I know I did last night. I tried everything on this forum! There was a bit of water in the headphone jack, so I looked like an idiot trying to suck it out, haha. It worked for a few minutes, then went back into headphone mode. So I cleaned the jack, I even put it in the freezer for 20 seconds to cool it down. What ended up working may have been a combination of a few things, or just the fact that I did as always. I let it sit all night charging, and I tried to play some music without my headphones in the morning. It worked. So thank you! I'm guessing it was the combination of letting it cool and cleaning the headphone jack, which proved to have some debris.

You seriously rock. I tried all the other stuff - blowing into it, q-tip, fuzz from q-tip, toothpick, switching between two Bluetooth speakers... finally found this. Only thing I hadn't tried, worth a shot. A second later, I've got The Who playing through my speaker while I'm laughing and repeating "you gotta be f-ing kidding!"

Can't argue with results...

I can confirm this 100% works! I tried everything else on this thread but seeing your comment, I copied exactly what you said. And bingo! Thank you so much! I never reply to these forums and had to create an account just so I could thank you!

My wife had this happen today with her iPhone 5S. She didn't get it wet or anything, she just woke up to her phone ringing and had to turn on speaker to use it. It kept saying headphones. I tried blowing in the jack, I tried sticking headphones in and out a million times and nothing.. I tried sucking on it. Nothing worked. I tried a qtip with a little fuzz on it, and while it was dirty in there, it still didn't work. I got a bright LED and couldn't see anything in there.

After frustration, I took the qtip again, and broke it in half. I used the stem, not the fuzzy end to poke all the way in, didn't work. I poked it in and spun it around a little, and pulled it out. It was covered in a wad of black fuzz. FIXED IT.

Don't be discouraged, there is a possibility that there is fuzz gunk up in there that you can't see. Just keep at it, but not too forceful, just lightly spin it. Hope this helps.

made a video how to for what worked for me

FIX headphone iphone - YouTube

If nothing works, such as q-tip trick, un-plug in and plug in of the headphone, bluetooth speaker trick, the Setting/General/Accessibility/incoming calls (audio routing for newer software)/set speaker, then headset, turning on shazam, activiate siri...etc. TRY THIS, 1) have someone call you, 2) turn on to speaker mode, 3)turn off the speaker, 4) plug in your headphone, 5) un-plug headphone. This should work!

So I had this issue and did ALL the tricks on youtube. ALL of them DID NOT work. But this did work. You can follow all the steps he did but what I did was a bit more basic. I went to Setting/General/Accessibility/audio routing -set speaker.

Then I used gmail to call myself but I'm sure you can have someone just call you. It should answer in speaker mode. (Having someone call YOU is important because I called someone and this did not work.)

When you answer the phone and its on speaker mode hit the home button and go to podcasts or Spotify or anything that play sounds(I used podcast) then while the phone is still on the call in speaker mode play something and you should hear it on the speaker simutaniously as the phone call. then while its playing the audio hang up on the phone call.

This was the only thing that worked. I was so excited that I actually signed up for an account after 10 years with an iPhone just to post this.

Hope this helps.

So I dropped my phone in the toilet and was lucky enough to snatch it out before it stopped working entirely, but my phone was stuck in headphone mode. I put it in rice soon after but it stayed that way. I finally resolved the issue by taking a q-tip and takeing almost all the cotton off the end and cleaning the inside of the audio jack with it. It soaked up any water and wiped away any dirt and my phone went back to normal. I was so relieved! Doing this definitely helped and it was super helpful for cleaning the audiojack anyways! To clean the chargerI just used a needle to scrape and doing so helped get rid of lint and dirt that was blocking my phone from charging fast and correctly.

My old iPhone 5 one day got stuck on headphone mode and I had no idea what was wrong or how to fix it. Today, Someone dropped my iPhone 6 in yogurt which only got into the earphone jack and got the iPhone stuck on headphone mode. After trying everything (q-tip, blowing/sucking on the earphone jack) putting my iPhone in the fridge for just 20 seconds has seemed to fix the problem. Thank you! 😁

This was due to water. At first I tried everything that I found on the internet: using a-tips, blow drying it, getting the debris out, restarting my phone. But nothing works. (I'm Asian) I Buried my phone under uncooked rice for an hour or so and it still didn't work. But then I did it again and left it there overnight for about 12 hours. It started working again. Hope this might help someone

After my Mr got water on my iPhone 6s it got stuck in headphone mode. After doing a network reset, unplugging and plugging in earpods 7-8 times and a hard reset all to no avail I decided to suck on the headphone jack.......it worked first time. Kudos to whomever suggested that solution (and to the person who discovered the solution in the first place).

I just had the same issue. Turn your phone on, turn the volume all the way down, go to Sounds and you will see the volume is all the way down on the slide bar. That turns OFF the headphones. Slide the bar all the way to the Right and recheck with the silence button and it should say Ringer. TahDahhh. Good Luck. It worked for me after all the other attempts did not.

Hello, all having this issue, try this, as it worked for me (i6s+):

Step 1 / Dry method: remove some 30-50% of the cotton from the tip of a cotton tip, stuff it inside the headphone jack port and rotate the cotton tip so inserted for a minute or so, finishing by gently yanking the cotton tip sideways (horizontal motion, to try to release the micro-pins inside the headphone jack port that are "tricking" it into "thinking" a headphone jack is inside); if this does not work, make sure all dirt was removed from the iphone jack audio port before going to suggested step 2 below, confirm the cotton tip comes out clean from the audio jack port.

The described procedure in step 1 did not fix the issue for me, though it left the headphone jack port cleaner. So, I risked and tried as follows (I suppose that it may wreck your phone, rendering it useless, especially if you apply too much WD-40):

Step 2 / Wet method: remove dry cotton tip, prepare a clean cotton tip as suggested in step 1 and apply WD-40 to it, repeat cleaning procedure in step 1 and wait, up to 2 hours or so. Worked fine with me.

Good luck to all!

I just got mine wet a little and was no longer able to hear thru head part. So I googled and when I saw what you did. I couldn't believe that it actually worked. I used qtips. I even blew into it. And I never thought to suck on headphone jack. Thank you. Working perfect

I didn't have my headphones plugged in or anything and it got stuck on that mode. I tried everything and it didn't work the I stuck the head phones in pushed twisted and pullout fast and it started working all of a sudden.

So my wife dropped her iPhone 6s in the toilet we dried it right away and used the rice trick for like 2 hrs but the only thing wrong was stuck in headphone mode tried everything then I found this post the paper trick worked perfectly thanks !!!!!