Find Airpods

How to find lost AirPods – what are the options?

Need help finding your missing, lost or even stolen AirPods? If you can’t find your AirPods, listening to your music, movies, series, making calls and everything else becomes extremely difficult, especially in public!

Fortunately, Apple offers a way to locate and find your AirPods. The prerequisite is that you have previously activated the “Where is?” function. This is what Apple prompts you to do during setup. If you know you just left your Airpods somewhere, or if you had them this morning, your chances of getting them back are good.

So if you’ve lost your AirPods and one or both of them are out of your pocket, you can use “Where’s?”. This means that “Where is?” will likely work in the house, in the car, at your desk in the office, or anywhere else as long as you’re within 10 feet of the Airpods.

For those of us who like to fall asleep on the couch while watching TV or streaming, this feature can be a great help in finding missing AirPods, especially if the little earpieces have slipped into the couch or fallen under furniture.

If your Airpods run out of charge, or or if you’re out of Bluetooth range, the “Where is?” app will show you where your AirPods were last detected and give you some information to get them back. For example, that’s the time and location when AirPods were last connected to one of your devices.

You might not find the “Where’s it at?” feature helpful, especially if your Airpods have been missing or stolen for a while. In that case, you’ll have to rely on the helpfulness of others. And if you’ve tried everything, you can also repurchase missing Airpods or even the charging case individually.

How to find lost AirPods with your iPhone

As soon as you notice your AirPods are gone, open the “Where is?” app. In moments, you’ll see a map or satellite image of the area around you, as well as a list of all your devices.

If you’re a long-time Apple user, list could be pretty long. Each entry includes a picture of the device, the name you gave it, and location information.

This could be a specific street address if it’s your home or somewhere near your contacts. Otherwise, it will tell you the city or neighborhood, which is less useful. At the very least, you’ll be able to see roughly where your AirPods are or were last as a reference point for searching. In addition, it also shows how far the device is from your location (in km).

You may have to scroll to find the Airpods in the list; but if you do, you’ll get detailed information about their location.

If you’re using a Managed Apple ID that’s administered through a business or school, you won’t have access to the Where’s app.

How to play a sound on AirPods to find them

While it’s good to know from Apple the approximate location of your Airpods. But really, it’s about getting them back. While the map in “Where is?” will take you to the right neighborhood or area, it also has another important function. The app can play a beeping sound on your Airpods.

This sound isn’t particularly loud, but it’s loud enough that you can hear it if you’re looking for the Airpods in your home or office, for example. And it’s so loud that a thief wearing the Airpods straight in his ear will wince in pain. And the sound of the “Where is?” app continues during the search until you stop it.

If the AirPods are in the charging case and therefore not connected, “Where is?” will display the sound as “Pending”. As soon as the AirPod charging case is opened and one of the earpieces is removed, it starts beeping.

You can also choose to play sound only on the left or right Airpod. So if you’re just looking for an earbud, the other one won’t distract you from your search.

Theory and practice

All of this sounds great in theory. In practice, it’s usually just as good as it sounds. There’s often a solution for little inadvertencies like a misplaced AirPod. Sometimes it’s not so easy, though, like when the last location of our AirPods shows a faraway place even though we know for a fact that we wore them for much longer after we left that place. This can happen if the battery or the mobile phone signal was weak.

Chances are your Airpods are just sitting on the coffee table or in your bag. So check your furniture and personal belongings first. If they are not there, the “Where-is?” app can be helpful. And if the Airpods or individual components just don’t want to show up anymore, there is the possibility to buy Airpods or even the charging case separately.

More questions about finding Airpods