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iPhone is stuck in headphone mode

I hadn't used the headphones before this happened. I've tried cleaning out the jack with a match (it looks very clean) and plugging the headphones in and out several times whilst watching a video. Neither worked.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

[Re-Titled by Host]

iPhone 6, iOS 8, 1 day old.

Posted on Oct 11, 2014 5:26 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Feb 28, 2017 3:43 PM

I've been trying to get this issue fixed on my iPhone 6 almost all day. I never use headphones and my phone has never had any water or physical damage. I tried SO MANY things and what finally worked for me was this.. HOLD DOWN THE VOLUME UP AND DOWN BUTTONS AT THE SAME TIME, WHILE STILL HOLDING THESE DO A HARD RESET. SO ALL THE STEPS YOU WILL DO AT THE SAME TIME ARE HOLD DOWN THE VOLUME UP AND DOWN BUTTONS WHILE HOLDING DOWN THE HOME BUTTON AS WELL AS THE BUTTON ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF YOUR PHONE. ONCE YOU SEE THE WHITE SCREEN WITH THE APPLE YOU CAN LET GO OF ALL BUTTONS. THIS SHOULD FIX THE ISSUE! I really hope this saves someone a lot of the hassle I've been through!!

302 replies

Jul 2, 2015 9:31 AM in response to patrickfromnewbridge

I just had the same problem and fixed it. I took a headphone jack and plugged it in multiple times! then i proceeded to take a can of air and blow it out with pressured air. After all of that i took the phone and just held down the two volume buttons the home button and the power button and did a hard reset. When it came back on it was back in "ringer" mode not "headphone" mode when you turn the volume up and down.

Aug 16, 2015 6:06 AM in response to r850723

Thank you r850723!!! Like another poster, I had done all the "tricks" - unplug/plug, q-tip, soft reset, reset network settings, unplug/plug during call, etc. I was so worried because this phone is only 6 weeks NEW and I knew for sure there was no water damage, it was never dropped, etc. The phone was working fine yesterday then this morning I woke up to change my ringer to loud and then it said headphones only.


I did your trick exactly as you put, except the last step I hung up and then changed the ring/volume switch on the side and voila it went back to "Ringer". Thank goodness I don't have to take a trip to the Apple Store. But if it happens again unfortunately I will go into the Apple Store because it shouldn't be a recurring thing! Thanks!


1) have someone call you (I called myself from my home phone)

2) turn on to speaker mode

3)turn off the speaker

4) plug in your headphone

5) un-plug headphone

6) hang up

7) adjust the ring/silent switch


It should no longer say "headphones"

Aug 19, 2015 8:25 PM in response to pasquotanksurfer

I read ALL of these threads and suggestions, none worked! I tried plugging in a headset several times, qtip, alcohol speaker, making a call on speaker, then unplugging headset during call, nothing worked. THEN…I saw the thread with some guy took a can of that compressed air with the red plastic tube on the end and sprayed it in the headphone jack for 10-20 seconds, while adjusting the ringer volume up and down and ….IT WORKED!!! It left headphone mode, back to ringer mode. I was having all the symptoms everybody was having on this thread, hope this helps!!!

Sep 29, 2015 11:39 AM in response to patrickfromnewbridge

I tried everything in this blog, the q-tip trick, putting a tissue over the headphone hole and inserting the headphone as far as it would go, cleaned the headphone jack with alcohol, used a paper clip and moved it around.... Nothing worked, I tried putting in on airplane mode for 1 hr, then turned it off and nothing would happen, but that was because I was missing something; so here is what I did and worked

Turn on airplane mode → do a full shut down of the phone, not only turn in off, you need to so a restart of the phone by pressing both the home and upper right hand buttons until the apple logo comes out (for about 10 seconds) wait until your phone turns back on and it will be on airplane mode → turn off airplane mode

This should do the trick

iPhone is stuck in headphone mode

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