Headphone jack broken off

I solved it in a MUCH safer way than glue and drills! Please read before you use these dangerous techniques. I came here because I had the exact same problem, the tip of my headphone jack broke off and got stuck inside the headphone jack of my Retina MacBook Pro. So, to remove it, I got one of those bamboo skewers. I chopped off perhaps 2 mm from its narrow tip. Then I carefully inserted it on center and kept rotate and jamming it inside the hollow of the broken tip, then once it was firmly jammed in, I pulled it out with one tug and the tip came out with it! No glue, no drilling! and no sharp metal objects inside the headphone jack to ruin it. MacBook Pro back to normal!

I experienced this same issue this morning when my headphones broke off inside the headphone jack. I read all of your replies (thank you) and discovered an amazing little tool that did the trick. It's call the MicroGrabit by Alden and it's a double sided shaft that connects to a normal handheld drill. One end drills into the lodged headphone jack, then you flip the shaft around, stick it into the drilled area of the jack, then begin drilling in reverse. Within seconds the broken jack was removed. I had superglue handy in case it came to that and I'm so glad I didn't have to use it. Go buy this tool (mine cost $30 at the local hardware store) and you will save yourself a lot of unnecessary time and expense.

Is there a software solution here? Something that can just choose to play sound through the speakers even when headphones are detected? That would be an easy fix but I just cannot find any software like this. It exists for pc's

I was able to loosen the tip with a dentist type tool. Lucky my macbook is sevn years old a pretty beat up, so I just banged it (lightly) on the tile floor and it fell out. I tried blowing it out with compressed air, but that didn't work. However, I would be willing to bet that if you used a real air compressor and high psi like at the gas station that this would work. Good luck. If you try superglue be sure to use the gel type.

Well my broke headphone jack has been stuck in my laptop for about 6 months. We tried a few things to get it out but was too afraid of going too far or trying the superglue method as I needed it for my work.

In the meantime I have been using the Griffin iMc which is great but just a bit inconvenient. Another adaptor/cable I have to remember to bring. But today we were about to bite the bullet and try the supergule method until we saw another suggestion using a thumbtack.

Bent the end of a thumbtack and turned it around in the jack outlet trying to grab the broken bit. Took quite a few goes about 5-10 mins until it finally came out. Looks like the audio port is stuffed (though I suspect that was more from previous prodding) as we can play sound but music is off balance and tinny through headphones. So at least I can play a quick excerpt of a spoken clip that i want to check without the iMic but if I want to listen to my iTunes or other music with my headphones I need the iMic. All in all am happy with the outcome.

One more option is to take the core out of a retractable pen (think the "clicky" pens), which should be a relatively thin plastic tube with a hollow opening (at least the one I have) on the opposite side of the writing end. I stuck that side (the hollow one, not the writing one) in the headphone jack, and it's almost a perfect fit, I'm using a Zebra ZGrip Medium I found laying around. Since it's such a close fit, you may actually be able to plug it all the way in, and the headphone jack will show the bright red LED which indicates headphones are plugged in, because it thinks the pen core is a headphone jack. Anyways, I wiggled it around the back and tried to draw out some of the crud, which seemed to work.

I think I had little shavings of plastic stuck in there, my backpack has these weird insulation beads that tend to fall out and get shredded up, and the unfortunate perfect storm happened with one getting wedged up into the headphone jack, then when I removed it with a thumbtack, the shavings that shredded off got stuck even more.

I think it is Apple's Fault all because this happened to me also. Not to mention, i had Apple headphones in when it occurred.

FYI--This happened to me today. I read all the suggestions and tried the one using the ink pen cartridge. That worked for me. I used an almost empty cartridge, cut it long enough to give me some grip, and used a hammer to gently wedge the tube into the broken jack tip. Once done, I was able to pull the broken part out.

Thanks you cburg59! You saved my day! I can't believe it was there for the last 3 months and could be so easily solved with a pen!

Apple official maintenance tried to ask me for almost 1000USD for a logical board replacement! Shame on you Apple Service!

Thanks again!

This actually worked for me. Thanks.

Genius...this is a brilliant solution. I didn't need the hammer but did put a small cut at the end of the biro tube to help it fit over the broken jack...very grateful and thanks!