If one AirPod is louder than the other

Whoa! This worked for me too!!!

And same, this happened after cleaning ear wax (which seems natural) buildup in the AirPods. Annoying.

1st comment in these threads, but I had to report that this strange fix works :)

I tried sucking on the big speaker of the AirPod that wasn’t working & that was a no go. I cleaned both speakers and that didn’t help either. I tried blowing into the speaker with a can of air and that did the trick for my AirPod that didn’t sound as loud as the other one. Hope this helps.

Thank you. Worked for me too. I carefully used a cocktail stick. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me that there’s no reason for my ears to produce equal amounts of wax and at my age nothing works perfectly.

Oh my god that actually worked, I thought I would have to take them in because after sucking on the big speaker nothing happened so instead I blew into the small one and it cleared out. So gross but it ended up working after a couple tries!

At this point If it’s still under warranty, you may want to make an appointment with Apple. This happened with my son’s AirPod. They took it and cleaned it but problem was still there. It was still under warranty and they replaced the one side at no cost to us.

Holly smoke!

That worked!

Thanks! it feels like I got me a new pair of AirPods!

One thing though - I blew air from the little holes towards the large speaker.

Same as sucking the air, but the other way around...

I had about half volume in might right AirPod and ended up here.

A more effective version of the 'sucking' option for me was to use some electronics duster on smaller, inside screen. Let me explainI first cleaned out the primary screen with a Zeiss cleaning wipe and a Q-tip. Then, while it was still damp, I blasted the smaller screen and a bunch of bits came out of the primary screen. I did this a few times until everything was clean and sound was loud, clear and equal again.

I've no idea if this is a terrible idea, so, your mileage may vary, and I won't take responsibility if you blow up an AirPod, but for me it was a fine solution.

WoW, can’t believe it actually works. I tried the sucking method and after a minute of sucking, my left airpods which is softer magically became normal. Holy moly, that’s really amazing, thank you!

Now I can see a small ear wax stuck on the inside grill of the airpods, not sure how to take it out but the sound level seems to be level now.

hey!!!

i would just like to say that the sucking thing legit worked! it sounds gross and at first i was like "i don't think that this will work" but i have it a go and it totally worked. no wax was inhaled or anything. highly recommend doing this lol

Wow - this works amazingly well. My daughter was about to spend money to replace her set, AFTER talking to a support person online for 45 minutes. I did a quick search and found this post - FIXED! Thanks for the posting.

Thanks! Not the most pleasant situation, but this trick worked for me too! Turns out sometimes if you press on your airport that already has earwax clogging it up, it can end up in the speaker muffling it. Sucking on it with your mouth isn’t the most pleasant, but it works!

my left airpod had been super quiet for months. i saw this and thought it was completely stupid, but i tried everything else and nothing worked, so i thought why not. sucked on it for maybe 20 seconds and it works like new (granted i think i swallowed a bit of earwax bc i’ve been coughing a lot now)

LOL - possibly, yes. Depends on where the wax sits inside the earbud, but certainly worth a try. It should be stated that no earwax was consumed (by me) in this procedure. Even a tiny bit can dampen the sound, and when you suck it collects on the outside of the mesh to be wiped away...

I actually found a fix, if you go on the Accessibility Tab in the options, then go on Audio/Visual, You can balance the sound from which earphone it's coming from. Since my left airpod is louder than the right one, i put the slider slightly to the right of the middle.

I hope this helped!

Adjusting the balance doesn’t actually “fix” the problem. It just adjusts the volume of the opposite AirPod. So, in your case, since the volume coming out of the right side was lower than the volume coming out of the left side, by sliding the balance a little right of center, you decreased the volume coming out of the left side, rather than increasing the volume coming out of the right side. The issue is that there is earwax muffling the right AirPod. The wax has to be removed to truly fix the problem.