Play audio on AirPods (1st or 2nd generation)
When you’re wearing your AirPods (1st or 2nd generation), you can double-tap to play, pause, or skip audio playing on your iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac, or Apple TV.
Play and pause audio
Wear one or both AirPods, and make sure they’re connected to your device.
Open an audio app, then play something. For example, you can play a song in Apple Music, or listen to an audiobook in the Books app
.To pause audio while listening with both AirPods, remove one. When you return it to your ear, playback resumes automatically.
Note: You can also set either of your AirPods to pause when you double-tap it, then resume play when you double-tap it again. See Change settings for AirPods (1st and 2nd generation).
If you don’t want AirPods to automatically play and stop the audio, you can Turn off automatic ear detection.
Stop the audio
Remove both AirPods from your ears, or if you’re wearing just one, remove it.
Skip tracks
You can double-tap to skip to another track in many audio apps. For example, you can double-tap to skip to the next song in Apple Music, or to skip to the previous episode in the Podcasts app 
.
AirPods (1st generation): You can set your AirPods to skip forward or backward when you double-tap.
AirPods (2nd generation): Your AirPods are automatically set to skip to the next track when you double-tap.
To customize the double-tap action, see Change settings for AirPods.
Protect your hearing
You can monitor and limit the volume of your AirPods using your iPhone or iPad. See Check your headphone levels in the iPhone User Guide.