AirPods are great for making phone calls and participating in video conferences. But sometimes, you must mute them so people on the other side can’t hear you. This blog post will show you different ways to mute your AirPods during a phone call, on Zoom or other conferencing apps, and for notifications. Let’s get started!
How to mute AirPods – What you need to know
The first thing you need to know is that AirPods has no built-in mute function. You must use a device or software connected to them to mute them. You can’t “block the microphone” either because there are 4 microphones on your AirPods.
Apple added tapping features to AirPods with the release of iOS 12. You can double-tap on either earbud to activate Siri, play or pause music, answer or end a call, etc. Your AirPods will automatically pause music when you take them out of your ears and resume playing when you put them back in.
But there is no way to mute AirPods with a double tap. Yes, it’s annoying, and we wish Apple would have included this function, but it is what it is.
Now let’s look at how you can mute AirPods via software or a device. The following advice applies to any AirPod generation.
How to mute AirPods during a phone call
There are two ways to mute AirPods during a phone call. They’re the same method, but one involves many more taps, which you probably use already.
- Tap on your screen
- Unlock your iPhone with Touch ID, Face ID, or introduce your PIN
- You will be presented with the latest app on the home screen. Tap on your call (at the top of the screen) to go to the call settings.
- Tap the microphone icon to mute the AirPods or tap again to unmute them
This procedure is well-known, yet it involves a ton of taps and menus. It can easily take 10 seconds to mute AirPods this way, defeating the purpose of having privacy on many occasions.
Here’s a faster way to the same method:
- Tap on the active call from the lock screen by clicking the name/number. This will bring up the call settings.
- Tap the microphone icon to mute or unmute your AirPods
As you can see, this method is faster since you don’t need to unlock your phone and then open the phone app. Hey, it’s better than nothing.
How to mute AirPods on Zoom or other conferencing apps
If you’re using Zoom, Skype, FaceTime, or any other conferencing app, you can mute AirPods by clicking the microphone icon on each app. The location changes, but it’s usually located on the toolbar at the bottom of the screen on Macs and PC. It might appear at the top of the screen if you’re on a tablet or iPhone.
As a recommendation to keep your privacy during a business meeting or a family call with multiple members, many people keep the microphone muted the whole time. You can unmute yourself by holding the space bar on your computer. This way, you don’t have to reach your mouse and locate the microphone icon every time.
Again, there’s no built-in mute function on AirPods, so you will need to use a device or software connected to them to mute them.
How to mute AirPods notifications
Sometimes Siri can be annoying. If you don’t like hearing your iPhone/iPad notifications through your AirPods, such as messages, reminders, apps, etc., you can disable them by following the following steps:
- Go to “Settings,” then tap on “Notifications.”
- Tap on “announce notifications” to disable Siri on your AirPods
- Or select the app you want to disable by scrolling down in the “notifications” menu
There you go! Siri has now been disabled, and your AirPods will be quiet when notifications sound.
The bottom line
AirPods are great for phone calls and video conferences. But sometimes, you need to mute them to protect your privacy. We explained different ways to do it, but unfortunately, AirPods has no built-in mute function. Hopefully, Apple will add this feature in a future update!
That’s all for now! We hope this article was helpful and that you know how to mute your AirPods in any situation. If you have any questions or comments, please let us know below! And don’t forget to share this article with your friends and family who might find it useful.