Airpod volume extremely loud when answering a call with IOS 16

I've had the same problem and I found the best solution available so far. The ring volume in your AirPods is tied to the volume in your Sounds & Haptics settings. Go to Settings > Sounds & Haptics: Ringtons and Alert Tones.

Mine is set to 100%, which blew out my ears. I turned it down to about 20%. My setting for "Change with Buttons" is off.

I called my phone from another line with my AirPods in and it was much more gentle on my ears.

I'm running an iPhone 13 Pro on iOS 16.1.2

I just bought the AirPods 2 (not pro) and I have the same problem. I have an iPhone 13 Pro running iOS 16 and listen to Spotify daily while I work and a call came in and nearly blew out my ear drums. My over the ear Bose headphones never have this problem.

I confirmed my iPhone volume was way down while listening to music via my AirPods, but looked and found out my ring volume was way up.

Here's how I fixed it:

1. Go to Settings > Sounds & Haptics
2. Turn the RINGTONE AND ALERT VOLUME slider way down to almost near the bottom
3. Switch the toggle for Change with Buttons to off
4. Call yourself from another phone to test it

This has been a problem for years, not just after the latest updates. There also aren't any "tone volume" settings with the original AirPods.

I managed to at least temporarily solve it by following two tips in this thread:

1. Changing to the crickets ring tone.
2. Adjusting the ring tone volume to minimum while a call was coming in.

There doesn't seem to be a separate ring volume setting for the built-in speakers and AirPods, it's the same slider. And even if you have a very moderate level set because of phone speakers, the volume is much louder with AirPods. I used to use the old telephone ring tone which was very loud when interrupting a podcast.

I could hear the ring tone volume change in real-time while adjusting the level when a call was coming in and just set it to minimum because that is the only really comfortable level for me. I usually keep my iPhone ringer muted anyway so it's not a big deal for me, but I can imagine if you need to keep a high level for the iPhone built-in speakers this isn't a complete solution.

Hopefully the volume level doesn't reset to a high level again later.

Possible fix:

With earpods connected

-Settings

-Airpods

-Scroll to bottom

-Accessibility

-Scroll to bottom

-Tone Volume

unfortunately it does not play a test sound, but it seems likely this is the proper setting

Temporary fix on my iPhone 11 Pro Max:

Turn off Wi-Fi calling. Tested it and no more deafening ringtone. There’s the problem Apple, FIX IT!

Hey rich-nh,

We'd be happy to help. Sounds like your AirPods are louder than expected when you put them in your ears.

We'd suggest adjusting the volume while the AirPods are in your ears to your liking. They should then retain that volume level as you take them out and put them back in again.

For help with adjusting the volume of your AirPods, please review: Pause, skip, and adjust volume with your AirPods and AirPods Pro - Apple Support

We hope this information helps out.

Take care!

Volume nearly on Zero and incoming calls are dangerously loud hurting my ears. only after IOS16 update. please fix or air pod pros are worthless to wear because I do not want hearing loss or damage to my ear drums. after the call comes in the conversation volume is fine. This is a bug Apple needs to fix ASAP

I too have noticed this issue. It’s been like this now for a week or two. It is excruciating. Like others, I’ve looked through all the settings. There does not appear to be a setting to adjust this on its own. I agree with others that Apple is not accepting they have a problem here requiring an urgent fix. It’s so excruciating I’ve actually bothered to Google it, make an account on here and leave a post. And it’s mainly to provide some slight assistance for others until apple fixes this. My suggestion is change your ringtone to the crickets tone. It seems to be the least offensive tone at full volume.

Under settings, there is headphone safety. You can use that as well as select the change with buttons. HTH

I find it odd that this issue only affects certain people. I’ve had AirPods 2 gen for a long time. I never had this problem. As soon as I download iOS 16 I had a major issue. I find it very sad that Apple refuses to do anything about it. If you put the slider down to zero or near zero, it’s tolerable ( with any tone), I just have to remember to move the slider back when I get home. Otherwise I miss my calls. This whole situation is ridiculous and has been going on for far too long. Though I appreciate people like yourself trying to come up with fixes, that’s more than Apple has ever done.

I agree, it's odd and Apple should certainly fix it and provide better controls. I've dealt it with for years but only now found some relief for it myself. I'm not sure why I was able to mitigate it now when previous attempts failed. Perhaps I couldn't believe before that moving the ring tone volume slider from 20% to 0% would do anything, since 20% was so loud already. Or maybe previously it actually didn't work for me. I thought I already tried everything a long time ago so it's a bit strange that now it worked.

I use my AirPods and AirPod Pros with iPhone, iPad and a MacBook Pro. Maybe connecting to multiple devices affects it somehow, like resets the volume level after moving between devices. I suspect it might come back after a while but I shall see.

My incoming call ringtones been been overly loud as well, but recently I've discovered that it only happens on my custom ringtones and does not occur when I selected default "Reflection" ringtone.

Any chance that issue is plaguing others and is a bug with how iOS handles custom ringtones vs the standard ones?

Hey there rich-nh, 

It may be best for you to Contact Apple Support for help.  They will be able to better investigate into this with you.

Have a good one!

I’ve just updated to iOS 16.1.1 on my iPhone 12 mini and the volume on my AirPods has gone back to front - volume up is down and Vice versa, but worse is that they are crazily loud even on the quietest setting which means I have gone back to my cheapo wired earbuds.