Macbook Air Microphone Volume Very Low

The volume on the microphone on my "Air" was so low as to be unusable. I was about to take it in to see a Genius when I took a magnifier and looked at the tiny thing on the left side of he MacBookAir and saw that most of the minuscule holes were plugged with whatever. I took a needle and opened them and it's loud and clear now. Maybe that would work for others. My "Book" is going on 4 years old. Lots of dust and lint in that time. I plan to vacuum often. Jerry H

Apparently replacing the mic module fixes the problem, but some new machines seem to have the same problem. I looked at my poorly performing microphone with a magnifying glass and found most of the little holes plugged with lint. I used a fine sewing needle to open them and the microphone began working much better but still not as well as my iMac. This whole issue came up for me as I answered the phone on my laptop - now available with Yosemite.

The mic needs to be moved to the top surface.

Jerry H

You are a genius.

Yes, I got a needle and cleaned the holes. Perfect, my mic is working again.

Thank you my friend.

I solved one big problem, because as I work with the Mac, had no time to let him look for support.

Thank you very much.

I did this and it helped somewhat, but the audio is still too low to be useful. Speaking very loudly, the level never goes above halfway. Using Garage Band to record audio, it's muffled and very low in volume.

Since I'm not sure I've ever used the internal mic in the 5 years I've had this MBA, it's quite likely it's always been like this.

It seems, from the response in system prefs, to tapping on the keyboard area that the mic works great. You can peg the meter easily. But the pickup port is to the side (wrong facing) and even putting my mouth 2" from the pickup holes results in poor sound quality and weak level (although improved).

I think the mic placement inside the MBA is fundamentally flawed. I doubt the mic is even facing towards the pickup holes. Engineering fail.

Hi all,

The Macbook Air microphone port can get clogged.

If you do a Skype test call, and you can hear music playing from your MBA clearly, and you can hear tapping on the laptop clearly, it's probably clogged. That's because the speaker is on the unclogged side (inside your laptop).

You can clean it with an old toothbrush.

Watch my tutorial here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aWpC8N8W08

@Daniel Son dude this is too awesome to be true. I had given up the internal mic for dead and it didn't much bother me until I heard that Sierra comes with Siri, so I thought I'd have one last try and then resign myself to using headphones. Because ifixit says replaces the mic on a Macbook Air 2010 is neither easy nor cheap. I had blown canned air into the holes and that hadn't worked so I thought it was surely a hardware fault. And of course apple hardware test on my machine doesn't work if you don't have the original usb drive with the OS X, and who the **** can ever find a USB they haven't seen in years? The one thing that perplexed me though was that when I TAPPED the keyboard the bars on the mic in system preferences would move ! I thought it if it was broken, why would it detect those sounds? Anyway, I tried the toothbrush never thinking it would work and OMG. Wish I could buy you a beer bro !!!! It's siri time

Magic happens when the power of the internet meets people like you! I took my 2012 MacBook Air to the Apple store & the guy there couldn't figure it out. He confirmed the mic was fine but thought it was either due to me running Yosemite, not Sierra, or a FaceTime glitch. He tried to erase FT to re-install it but couldn't. I, too, wondered why the mic picked up finger drumming & real close paper rustling but not voice from the front that it used to. It wasn't until I tried siri & found that siri & FaceTime had the same issues I twigged it was the mic. A quick Google, found the thread, nearly gave up until I jumped to the end & found your instructional video! A beer from me too. Thanks, Dan.

Same problem on my recently purchased MacBook Air 13" i5 core. No microphone sound when using FaceTime so we have to use Skype.

Apple please correct.

Thanks.

Yeah, my 2011 MacBook Air has the same low microphone volume issue in FaceTime as well.

So did you went to any Apple Store or find anyway to improve it at all?

Thanks

Gavin

OK, that meens it's no a common problem due to the position of the microphone.

I have the same problem (very low microphone volume) and I'll try to get help from a Apple Service Provider next week. 😟

Hi Grant, hope you can find the issue in Apple store. And share with us... 🙂 Gavin

Hi Grant, great to hear this good news... Then I'll go to Apple Store for it. How long does this surgery needed, I wonder? Gavin

Thanks for this Grant - it's great news. Hope the Apple store in Zurich can fix mine - even though it was purchased in the UK...

Ally.

@gavinchang - On my 13" MBA it is on the left hand side near the earphone input jack.

I have the late 2010 MBA 11". I hope that here in Chile they´ll fix the problem.