How to limit volume on iPad? (iOS 10.2+)

I have a 12 year old with severe Autism. Like a lot of the other posters my son will not turn his iPad down and it is incredibly frustrating that I cannot limit the external speaker volume of the ipad through the iOS software. I ended up putting 2 pieces of scotch tape over each speaker and it reduced the output volume by at least half. It is an unfortunate solution to a problem that Apple could easily fix themselves, but it worked for me. Obviously you'd need to have the iPad in a case that the child cannot open or remove easily. I hope this helps someone.

Hi, not sure if you found a solution yet but I’ve had similar problem with my son. I just downloaded an app in the App Store called Volume Sanity and now I can set a limit on the volume no matter what my son is on. It’s $4 but well worth it. App has to be running in background the entire time so make sure not to close it while he’s on it. Hope this helps!

The only solution I have found is guided access with volume controls disabled and any part of the screen that displays the volume bar also disabled.

Hi all,

we had the same issue, our son ramping up the volume all the time.

I think we now figured out how it works.

The volume ristriction is indeed set in the settings of the music app.

Set the restriction there.

subsequently disable volume modifications in the restrictions section.

this will disable modifying the restriction set in the music app!!!, not the modification of the volume itself.

it works with headphones only as far as I can tell.

the restriction also works with the youtube app (Other stuff still to be tested, but feels positive to me).

It is kind of misleading that the volume bar still seems to run up to the full maximum volume, but we found that the max selectable volume is the restricted volume as we set it.

The good thing about that imo is that my son will not have a direct clue that something is indeed restricted, everything looks the same as without restriction (except for the actual volume of course).

Hope it helps

Han

I had the same problem and was as frustrated as everyone else. By chance I realized I had not actually been listen to the headphones after the volume restriction, only responding when I saw that my son had turned the volume meter to the max. After putting on the headphones I realized that he was maxing it out BECAUSE of the restriction. The meter ends at the MAX I had set. So when I moved it to the middle, it was way to low for him to hear. I’d been frustrating him the whole time. Hope this helps. I haven’t checked without the headphones yet.

As a mom to twin boys with developmental delay and ADHD, the volume level and ensuing meltdowns are maddening. After research, the volume limit controls and restrictions only apply to the headphones when in use. Major bummer. However, there are apps that can be bought (around $4) that can limit volume! Yay!

Same here.

And just in case nobody has said it out loud yet... there is NO way currently to set a device-wide volume limit for the iPAD and lock it.

It's sad to see nobody at Apple actually cares.

😟

Judging from how long this topic has been out here on these forums, that must be the case.

It is certainly possible... they wrote the audio drivers. 😕

**SOLUTION**

I have discovered that if your child turns the iPad up after you’ve asked them not to, what I do is, I take the iPad away for a day and we try again the next day. There’s no answer how long the process takes, could be a day or it could be a month!

However I guarantee sooner or later that they’ll stop turning the iPad up giving us parents some peace whilst they’re distracted!

To everyone in this post.

There is no one in ANY of these Apple Support Communities from any Apple product teams, here.

Cognizant or responsible Apple product teams, designers and engineers do not read, nor participate in these Apple technical support communities.

Your pleas to Apple and are going unheard by Apple here.

Cognizant Apple teams do not monitor these Apple support communities.

These are, largely, Apple product user to user technical support communities.

I and others, in these Apple product support communities, are simply Apple product users, just like you, that volunteer our own time and knowledge here.

Apple supplies these forums for users to work out their product issues with other users, but these community forums ARE monitored/moderated by Apple Staff, as well as Apple Community Support Specialists, assigned to these community forums, but I do not think any specific user posted info is ever passed on to who/mever the cognizant parties are who would need to know if there are any mounting issues with any Apple product or software.

These ASC ONLY moderators and staffers, due to Apple privacy policies, do not forward any info contained/obtained from ANY postings within these communities to any cognizant Apple staff, teams or individuals.

The only way to get Apple to, DIRECTLY, listen to you is to use their feedback portion of their website.

iPad Feedback

http://www.apple.com/feedback/ipad.html

Cognizant Apple employees read ALL feedback generated from all of the various feedback pages and transfers the data to the proper and responsible Apple teams and personnel , but NO Apple employees will ever respond with any type of direct, individual replies from the feedback you post.

The more users that post product feedback about any product issue, the faster Apple is made aware and starts working on a fix/solution for a future software update.

Also, you may want to phone contact Apple, directly in Cupertino, California, and calmly talk to an Apple customer service employee about this issue via the link below.

Contact - How to Contact Us - Apple

Good Luck to All!

I ended up putting two little pieces of electrical tape over the speaker. I couldn’t find out how to lock it and it’s driving me butters too

I checked iOS 12 beta, nothing has changed. You must use some external app to limit the volume.

This could have been written by me, and is the bane of my life!!! Apple, please sort this out!! If anyone ever finds out if the volume can be limited please post here, as I can't get it to work on my sons iPad :-(

I will never understand how they can market this as an assistive device and not fix this issue we’ve all been complaining about since the first generation. The volume fights are ridiculous. How is this still an issue? We never use music, and videos (or TV as it’s called in the current iteration) doesn’t apply the music volume limit. So frustrating!

As a follow up, I submitted directly to the feedback site, maybe if enough of us do that they will finally pay attention to this issue?

https://www.apple.com/feedback/ipad.html

I am the parent of a child with autism and Fragile X. My son listens to the iPad at full volume. I know there is a limit for headphones and for the music app, but there really should be a limit for the internal speaker. He primarily uses the TV app and third party Education apps and can’t wear headphones due to sensory issues so we spend our time while he has the iPad constantly policing the volume. There are multiple threads in the support forums asking for help with this. Please, please fix this issue. The iPad has been a wonderful assistive device for our son, but the volume is dangerous to his hearing and to our sanity!

SOLVED!!

I had the same problem and finally I managed to solve it.

I’m a developer so I solved the problem like a developer, I created a special app. The app allows to specify the maximum loudspeaker volume. I used app privately for a few months until I realized that my app is the only app that works on iOS 11. So, I decided to make it public. The app is called Volume Limit Control, you can download it from the App Store (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/volume-limit-control/id1418771366?mt=8). I hope that this answer will solve your problem.