How to find your lost AirPods or Charging Case

In this tutorial, we will show you how to use the Find My app or iCloud on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac to locate your lost AirPods. We will also show you how to have your AirPods play a high-pitched sound or use AirTag-like nearby precision tracking to find the AirPods and their charging case.

Finding missing AirPods using iPhone

Like other Apple devices, your AirPods are also tied to your Apple ID and appear in the Find My app or iCloud web. This can help you locate the missing pods by showing their live or last known location and playing a sound. With newer models like the AirPods Pro 2nd generation, you can also get step-by-step guidance to find the precise location of each bud or charging case.

All these features happen to be very handy in case you misplaced your AirPods or just let one slip between the couch cushions and are having a hard time finding it.

Note: You can also use these steps to find your newer Beats earphones and headphones, as Beats is owned by Apple and shares tech similar to AirPods.

Get the location of your missing AirPods

This works with all AirPods models.

Using Find My

  1. Open the Find My app on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac.
  2. Tap Devices.
  3. Select your AirPods from the list of devices you own. Note that if you have an AirPod Pro 2nd generation or newer, you will have the option to select the charging case, left bud, or right bud.
  4. You will now see the AirPods location on the map. Zoom in on the map to know where they are. You can also use the direction button to open Apple Maps and navigate to the spot where your AirPods are.
Know the location and get directions to your missing AirPods in Find My app

Note:

  • The Directions title is replaced with the Find tile if your AirPods are nearby. More on it later.
  • You may not be able to see the location if your lost AirPods are discharged or out of range of the paired iPhone or other Find My Network Apple devices. In these cases, Find My will show you the last known location of your AirPods or display the “No location found” or “Offline” messages. You can’t do much, but in case your lost AirPods come back online, you will get a notification on your devices.

Using iCloud

If you cannot use the Find My app on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac or the Find Devices app on your Apple Watch, you have the option to use iCloud in a phone or computer browser.

  1. Visit iCloud.com/find and sign in with your Apple ID email and password.
  2. Select your AirPods from the All Devices section.
  3. You can now see the location of your AirPods on the map.
Using iCloud Web to see location of lost AirPods

Play sound on your AirPods to find them

This works will all AirPods models.

Imagine you have misplaced your AirPods somewhere in your bed or office. In this case, you can use the Find My app or iCloud to play a loud sound on the buds to locate them.

  1. Select your missing AirPods in the Find My app or iCloud web.
  2. Tap Play Sound.
  3. Now, listen carefully to locate them. The sound will eventually get louder, helping you find the AirPods. If you still can’t, and the sound stops, you can play it again.
Playing sound on AirPods using Find My app on iPhone

Note:

  • You will see the ‘Sound Pending” message if the missing AirPods are offline. In this case, the sound will play the next time they connect to a device.
Sound Pending Will play when connected message for AirPod in Find My app
  • If you have an AirPods Pro 2nd generation, you can select where you want to play the sound: Case, Left Bud, or Right Bud. Yes! The charging case has its own speaker!
Select AirPods Pro 2nd generation case, left bud, or right bud to find one
  • If you have misplaced both AirPods at different locations, and you find one, you can tap its purple tile to stop the sound from playing on it. You can continue playing the sound on the other bud that’s still missing.
Sound stopped on left AirPod but playing on Right AirPod

Use Precision Finding to locate your AirPods

  • This method works with AirPods 3rd generation, AirPod Pro (all generations), AirPod Max, and newer models.
  • You also need an iPhone 11 or newer (excluding iPhone SE 2nd and 3rd generations). It won’t work if you use the Find My app on your older iPhone, iPad, or Mac, as these devices do not have the Ultra-Wideband chip for Precision Finding.

Imagine you have misplaced your AiPods in another room, but you don’t know that. In this case, your iPhone can guide you where to walk to find the AirPods. It’s much like how you use the Find My to locate an item attached to an AirTag.

  1. Open the Find My app on your iPhone.
  2. Tap Devices and select your AirPods. If it’s an AirPods Pro 2nd generation, you must further select Case, Left Bud, or Right Bud.
  3. Tap Find Nearby.
  4. Now, move around and help your iPhone establish a connection with your AirPods. Once it establishes a link, your iPhone can guide you where to walk to locate the missing item. You can also play a sound from this screen, or if it’s dark, you may see an option to turn on the iPhone flashlight to find your missing AirPods and the charging case.
Use Precision Finding to locate missing AirPods

Can you lock your AirPods to prevent them from being used by the thief?

You can remotely lock your iPhone, iPad, or Mac using Find My or iCloud, and it will prevent the thief from using the device. Even if they erase and restore the device, Activation Lock will prevent them from setting it up for use. However, AirPods do not have this feature. The thief can just reset AirPods without a phone or computer and then pair it with their Apple or non-Apple device.

How finding AirPods works

Because your AirPods are connected to your device via Bluetooth, it is very likely that when they disconnect from your iPhone, your iPhone will log the GPS location where that disconnection happened. This is actually similar to a feature that automatically logs the location of your car if it is connected via CarPlay or Bluetooth to your iPhone when you turn off the car (Read: How to have the Maps app remember where you parked your car).

The location where the AirPods and iPhone were “last seen together” can offer a high probability that your AirPods are still there unless, of course, someone stole them and left with them.

Secondly, AirPods (3rd generation), AirPods Pro (all generations), and AirPods Max can also take advantage of Apple’s Find My Network, provided you enabled Find My Network on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac where you had paired your AirPods. Find My Network uses all participating Apple devices of other people to securely relay the location of your missing device to you.

Check out next: The best AirPods deals you can get right now