If one AirPod is louder than the other

Those folks talking about sucking on the tip, where the grill is, raises the wax enough to clean it out. You’ll have to be careful about how you do it- you need to just get your lips on the extreme end so the air comes in through the side holes and comes out that tiny grill. It’s a real pain, you’ll feel some resistance but it’ll slowly get better until air can freely move between those side holes and the main output hole. It’s hard to explain but once you get it you’ll understand what I mean. Then wipe with qtip damp but not wet by any means. Do it again and again, maybe three or four times, until it’s clean after you rub the speaker grill and you should have a fully functional AirPod again.

This should resolve any blockage. I had the same problem driving me to within days of just buying another pair until I found this thread and it’s solution works great!

It may be naive thing but trust me sucking on the airpods did work like a charm. I did try lot of methods like keeping it in a bag of rice after cleaning it with rubbing alcohol but nothing worked but when I sucked on the low volume airpod it worked like magic :)

I had mine for about 6-9 months before I had a problem. My ENT Dr said there’s two kinds of people; ones with dry ear wax and ones with wet ear wax. I think those of us having problems have the wet kind that gobs up the tiny holes when we put them on while there’s wax in our ear canal. I can’t believe they didn’t have this problem during product testing and I personally have never had the problem with their wired headphones.

I wish I knew where my wired lightening plug headphones are so I could compare the two. Anyone have a pair they can compare to see if there was a design change that make AirPods more susceptible to earwax than wired Apple headphones?

I didn’t think the sucking on the AirPod would work, but it did, I felt some air was clogged so I kept sucking until I felt air come out, it was the earwax that cause the clog, obviously cause what else do you put in it😂

I was extremely skeptical but sucking on the AirPod you can hear out of actually works! It might take a few tries, and patience, but after a little bit you can see the wax around the edge of the Airpod and just wipe that away and it should be fine! Wax shouldn’t get in your mouth either.

Thank you so much!! I had trouble with my left airpod for so long that I got fed up and brought it to the apple store where their temporary fix lasted only for a month or so. Now I don't have to make appointments or try to deep clean with brushes in vain. Sucking the air out is really helpful for wax that has settled deep inside the speaker. After that, you should use a soft bristled brush like Apple suggests.

Good luck!

Okay, listen, I’ve been aggravated about one being much louder than the other and that it seemed like over time they were becoming less impressive in terms of sound quality and general loudness. However, this “sucking” trick is amazing. Who knew?! I thought I kept mine relatively clean but apparently not. They are back to sounding brand new!!!!! This is amazing.

I figured it out, and it worked, if it’s not ear wax you might be hearing stereo videos or music in which one airpod has an instrument and the other has another or one earphone is the main, so go to settings/ general/ hearing/ and turn it to mono so it will not have this surrounding effect:) tell me what you think? Also check if the left and right balance is the same.

This is crazy but I’m so glad you posted but this because it worked!! So when the volume level on one of your AirPods sucks...SUCK! Amazing!! I was starting to think I’d have to replace my right one because it was so much quieter. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!!

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First thing to do is go into accessibility in settings then select Audio/visual and make sure the sound bar is on the middle dash. If that doesn’t work take a soft bristled too the brush and brush the big sound bar softly then suck on it till you can feel air coming out.

I tried reset the AirPods, restarting my devices, connecting my AirPods to another device, and even sucking on the right one, but nothing worked!

So I went into Settings > Accessibility > Audio/Visual > and turned mono audio on. It made the sound even in both AirPods. Then I turned it off and it fixed it!

I’ve been experiencing the same issue. I haven’t even had my EarPods a year yet and the right has become significantly quieter than the left. No amount of cleaning has fixed it and it’s not just some particular thing that I’m listening to, it’s everything. My sound settings are balanced as well so I’m not sure what’s going on. Has to be some sort of design flaw.

Clean whichever AirPod is lower with rubbing alcohol and Q-tips. Be sure to hold the AirPod facing down so that you don’t get alcohol inside of the AirPod. Dry completely with the other end of the Q-tip. What worked best for me was holding the AirPod up to the vacuum hose using the smallest piece and sucked all the debris out. Works like new. Be sure not to let go of the AirPod to where it gets sucked up. That would be horrible.. Clean again and dry completely by repeating step one.

My left AirPod’s sound was muffled and I went through all the normal troubleshooting with Apple chat support just for them to tell me to bring it in for replacement which I didn’t feel like doing but thought I had no choice until I googled my problem and came across this thread, the sucking thing really worked.... 2 years later! Thanks