If one AirPod is louder than the other

This is risky but while holding the airpod with the screen facing down so no liquid can enter the airpod, take a qtip with a little rubbing alcohol on it and gently rub the screen. Dry with microfiber cloth while the screen still faces the ground. Keep the screen facing the ground until you are 100% sure it is dry.

I found the solution. Besides sucking into the AirPods, you can connect your AirPods to your MacBook (if you have one) then hover over bluetooth in the upper right, hover over your AirPods from the menu, then click "Open sound preferences." from there on "Output" make sure the lever is in the center.

Sometimes the level can be set to the right or left which would play sound on either the right or left side. Make sure your lever is in the center for equal volume on both AirPods, this will play the sound equally as loud on both of the AirPods.

Hopefully you guys will be able to use this in the future! Have a great day!

You can adjust balance to any AirPod by going to iOS settings, accessibility, AirPods. Then “Audio Accessibility Settings”. At the bottom will be a balance control.

There are additional custom settings you can make, but you must have the second generation AirPods or above. I bought these AirPods last year at Costco in 2020, and they are first generation, manufactured in 2017! The second generation manufactured beginning 2019. So why did Costco sell me first generation AirPods? Something should have been mentioned that you were receiving first generation AirPods, and not second generation, which were available at the time.

I’ll post the sequence of pictures to get to the balance control in iOS 14.7.1, and how to identify what AirPods you

Haha, this is amazing, worked with wired EarPods as well!

Weirdly, that's the second time sucking has saved my Apple gear. 😁 iPhone stuck in headphones mode was saved by sucking on the headphone port as well! 😁

Yup that works. I think the sucking is taking compression off the surface of the AirPod that need to vibrate. Mine were clean but compressed from my pressing on the surface gently to clean it. Also, left / right volume settings are now in accessibility > audio visual

If one AirPod is noticably softer or not as loud as the other one here is a weird but simple solution. Suck on the AirPod. Sounds gross but it’s worth it. The reason it was soft is because the earwax was in the war for your music. 🙏 your welcome.

This might sound absurd, but I tried several things mentioned on this thread, without success, until I remembered I had long ago set my laptop speakers to be right-side-only with no sound from the left speaker, which is broken. When I adjusted this slider back to the middle, that translated to my AirPods as well. Don't judge me lol, just leaving this here in case it helps somebody! :)

I had the same issue with the right. Took it to the Apple Store and they replaced it. It happened after I gently tried to remove some wax buildup from the screen (a normal action that an owner of these would have to do). Now I tried to gently clean the left one with a toothpick and microfiber cloth and now the left output isn't as high as the right.

Starting to believe this is a design flaw. No guidance from Apple on how to properly clean the screen without output being lowered after cleaning.

I had the same problem. When I went on google, was reading different situations and senarios. I saw one that said it about the Accessibility settings.

The balance of the headphones were more to the Right side (R). That was the reason for the lower volume on the left side.

In case you're dealing with AirPods pro, please make sure that the AirPods tips are not blocked by anything.

In my case, I've found out that when I took out one of the tips from it's paper case, I tore by mistake a piece of paper that stack inside one of my tips... :-).

I though I'm getting crazy, after hours of hours of trying any suggestion on the web :-)...

Anyway, check the attached photo to understand the problem.

Hi,

I tried the sucking thing on the right airpod(the one that’s quieter) and it didn’t work so I say someone say about settings where u can select how louder the music is in both ears mine was in the middle so that wasn’t the problem but I then moved it more the the right and I think they are both the same now

My left Airpod was about twice as loud as my right one. I took photos with my iPhone of both Airpods and the right one had a slight film, probably ear wax, covering the screen surface. I dipped a toothbrush into rubbing alcohol and rubbed it on the screen surface of the right Airpod. I gently wiped the Airpod dry with a soft cloth. I tried both Airpods again and the sound level was identical for both Airpods.

The first photo below is of the right Airpod before I cleaned it. The second one is after I cleaned it.

Crazy how I came back here just to say it actually works!!

Even if you feel like your AirPod is squeaky clean like I did, still give it a go!😅

It works!

So glad I found this comment! Very dubious but to my surprise it worked so well