Volume down button doesn't work on iPhone 5

I found out that torquing the phone worked for me but was always a hassle.

Ends up, the solution is simple. All I did was lift up the screen and place a 1/2" by 1/2" (ish) piece of plastic on top of the battery, like an old credit card or equivalent thickness. Placement of plastic piece is in the upper corner nearest the volume button.

The problem is that it needed more pressure and torquing it helped. So, just by adding a layer of plastic, and closing it shut, it added enough force to solve the issue. May need multiple layers. This has worked for over 24 hours not and not a long term fix but is working for me since I am out of warranty.

I've had this problem for months and the twist method works for me but isn't very convenient. However, I seem to have got the volume down button working again permanently. whilst holding the volume down button in fairly firmly, I twisted the phone backwards and forwards. It's almost as if the button had become dislocated and has now relocated.

Very pleased that I now longer need to twist the phone. Hope this works for others.

Same problem. Tried toggling + and - with no success. Tried a couple other suggested remedies. With the protective cover off and while in the settings volume screen, I tapped the - button on corner of a desk sharply but not really hard. After a couple taps the buttons are functioning normally. Definitely a hardware issue with the 2+ year old iPhone5.

if this is a software problem then i do not know what the repair will be. maybe just a flashing of the phone.

but if this is off of warranty and it is a hardware problem, then they will not repair the button, you will have to replace the phone.

happened to me, i just decided to keep the phone and not worry about the volume down button

HI everyone!

I've had this problem for a good 2 months until I read that if you apply pressure to the upper right hand corner, it would work. Let me go into detail, what I think this person meant is that you have to twist your phone from bottom left to top right. Not that much, but it started working for me and it feels so good knowing my iPhone buttons work!

AAbsolutely incredible. This worked for me - the twisting bit. Nothing but assisted touch would work for lowering the volume. I'm about to send the phone in for sleep/wake button repair anyway but glad to find this solution. Been living with these issues forever. THANK YOI!!

The volume down button on my iPhone 5 hasn't worked for a long time, but I finally got around to trying to fix it tonight. Bending seemed unlikely to me, as I've always carried it in my front pocket, protected by a case. A lot of switches stop working due to the switch contacts oxidizing, so I decided to attack it from that direction. I didn't have any electronic contact cleaner handy, but I did have some 91% Isopropyl Alcohol, so I soaked a cotton ball and began dripping some alcohol onto both the up and down volume buttons, then working the buttons, and repeating for several minutes until the down volume button began working again. Hope this helps someone.

I think I discovered a bug.

I was having the same problem. Tried a variety of suggestions. I haven't read them all, so what I found may or may not have been suggested. In the Settings->Sounds, I disabled Ringer and Alerts -> Change with Buttons toggle. I disable that feature and the button works. I re-enable and it works initially while in that screen. Going away from the settings screen (ala back to the home screen) it doesn't work. For now, I just disabled it.

This was the only thing that worked for me! I'd brought up the 'assistive touch' app, and had done the 'toggle back and forth' trick, but it didn't work until this post gave me the idea to toggle WHILE 'assistive touch' was in operation, and BOOM! It works fine now. Thank you so much for the inspiration!

OH MY WORD! This JUST worked for me too!! It's been driving me crazy! Thanks daniel.early79!!!

This actually worked for me too, seems like there might be a connection loose between the rocker inside. It still stops working once and awhile but this is a quick fix, thanks

By pressing volume up and down, for several times, made it work fine again, thanks.

Perfect Solution 🙂 the only one who worked for me.

Thank you

Great suggestion; worked for me too even though I need to repeat "pressure procedure" once in a while but at least I've got a solution until I bring the phone in in a service center

That worked great! I was able to lower the volume for Siri and that was what I was hopin' to acheive.

Steve