iPhone volume decreasing on its own

Hi Bkush04,

As the sound gets lower as if you received a notification, but you don't see anything, could you have a notification that doesn't have an alert? When you go to Settings > Notifications, for an app, you can have Lock Screen, Notification Center, and Banners turned off but still have Sound turned on. You can double check any app that doesn't show notifications are turned off and that doesn't have these features turned on. Check out Use notifications on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch for more information.

Another thing to check is the output device. Does this happen when connected to multiple devices, such as using your speaker or connecting to a Bluetooth headphone. If it only happens when connected to one output type, see if that output has settings that could be causing this.

Hope this helps.

Have a good day.

Bkush04,

Thanks for the follow-up info. It's possible that you might have Attention Awareness enabled on your iPhone. This feature lowers the volume of any alerts or notifications when you are looking at the iPhone. To check this, go to Settings > Face ID & Passcode, and switch Attention Awareness to Off. More info on this can be found here:

Turn Attention Aware features on or off on your iPhone or iPad Pro

Let us know if this helps you.

I had this same issue and found that it was being caused by a specific app. I have the Dexcom app and, even though I had notifications all turned off, it was still somehow trying to alert me with blood sugar notifications. You may need to delete apps one by one to try to see which one may be causing the issue.

I think I fixed this issue:

Accessibility> Audio/Visual > Background Sounds > Adjust rain volume to 50% and use when media is playing to 50%

Seems to affect this issue even when background sounds toggle is set to off.

Matching the levels instantly solved this for me

Hello Bkush04,

Have you had a chance to power cycle the iPhone? Here are the steps: press and hold the side button until "Power Off" appears. Drag the slider, then wait 30 seconds for your device to turn off. While simple, this can refresh the iOS, apps and connections. More information is available here:  Restart your iPhone - Apple Support

Do you hear a sound when you receive a message, email or other items? We want to see if some notifications are working as they should.

Are you able to determine if any app had activity that caused the reaction as if a notification was received?

Isolating the issue to the correct app will help find a solution.

Have a good day.

Agree. I had an app called Dexcom for blood sugar management. Even with notifications turned off, it kept sending those “ghost notifications” you so aptly called. I deleted the app, problem solved. Apple had no idea what to do and they SWORE it had to do with spatial audio and even got annoyed when I told them that wasn’t it. I would urge anyone with this issue to try and delete apps like the one I mentioned and see if it solves the issue.

Okay, hear me out please, because this is something that kept happening to me. On at least one song (Spiritbox's "The Summit" between 50-55 sec in). At the same spot. Every bleeping time.

Could it be the equalizer settings you're using? I had mine on "Late Night," which was causing the problem. Bluetooth, wired headphones, anything. It was only on my iPhone 13, as well. No problems on iMac nor iPad. Trying to eliminate possibilities, it finally hit me that the only thing different between it and the other things was the EQ had been set. Just turned the EQ setting off and that fixed the problem. At least for me.

Settings -> (Apple) Music -> EQ ->None/off

I'm assuming Apple Music because the icon is the same as Apple Music. I was also not having problems with drops on YouTube Music.

was having the same issue the I found this on Reddit it worked for me

“it sounds you have Attention Awareness enabled on your iPhone. This feature may the volume when you are looking at the iPhone.

Therefor, based on the information you provided in your post, this phenomena is NOT random: it happens right when you pick up your device ie. when you are looking at it, thus triggering 'Attention Awareness'.

To turn Attention Awareness off do the following:

Settings - Face ID & Passcode, and switch Attention Awareness to Off

-Close all apps

-Shut down your device

Once your device has powered off, then

-Power on your device

-re-check the changes are still in place (ie. Awareness should be Off)

Next time you pick up your device, it will keep blasting as loud as you set it up.

The second part you mentioned in your post has to do with 'this also happens randomly': Just keep in mind that IF and that is a gigantic 'IF' you have other apps running in tbe background and/or you have 'app background refresh' turned on in your device, then it may be possible that even after turning Attention Awareness off you could then have an app that may be running in the background (1) AND/OR if you have 'app background refresh' on (2), than other apps may be trying to lower the volume to notify you... this happens to me sometimes, though in my case, I know which apps are running and in 100% of the cases are the other apps, that tried to play a notification sound and either got hunged-up and played nothing, but the volumne as a result was turned down for the notification to play, even though the notification sound may have indeed failed to play--.

Best for you will be to have all of your apps closed when you have your music blasting loud, as well as app background refresh turned off as well, so that you will be 100% that nothing else will be interrupting your sound experience : )

Best Regards”

There is a sound option that is on by default for tracking notification. Settings > Notifications > Tracking Notifications. That was it for me!

I fixed it by turning off conversation awareness on mu airpods pro.

i went settings, selected the airpods pro and then turned off conversation awareness.

This was a good tip.

Issue followed me to iOS 16.

I removed a few apps I wasn't using anymore, but still had a lot of infrequent use apps I wanted to keep.

So I went through Settings, and for almost all the apps (besides my ~10 most frequently used ones), disabled "Background App Refresh" and "Cellular Data" for any of them that had those settings available.

Since doing that I haven't had an audio brownout in 2 days (and several hours of listening). Hoping that's got it, and if I re-enable those settings as/when I need to for low use apps, eventually might work out which one is causing it.

Hopefully someone else can give that a try and see if it solves the problem for them.

Mine was doing the same thing. Go to settings then sounds and haptics and turn your ringer volume up and it instantly turned my sound up. The buttons on the side only control the music sound volume unless you change it in settings. Me turning my ringer volume all the way up solved it for me.

Hello, I also faced this issue on my iPhone 13 pro, this issue makes sound silencer in random moment on AirPods, iPhone speakers, any device connected, no matter, also if silence mode switcher is on. As all mentioned here it takes 10-15 seconds and then sound level returns back.

What I did, firstly checked that all notifications had notification banner turned on, but it didn’t help.

Then just disabled at all notifications from all applications except some important. And this issue disappeared totally, so, some of applications generate ghost notifications. Please, try and reply then on this message if it helped in your case.

Not sure if this is the same problem others are having but my volume was always getting muted or lowering. I eventually learned it was my Apple Watch muting it whenever the screen was getting covered randomly against my body or something. I disabled the mute when covered option on the Apple Watch to avoid this.

I think I solved it.

I turned off Headphone Accommodations and it hasn’t happened again.

accessibility > audio/visual > headphone accomodations