If the sound from your wireless headphones cuts out or is distorted
If the sound from your Bluetooth headphones, including AirPods and wireless Beats headphones, cuts in and out or is distorted, find out what to do.
Improve your Bluetooth connection
Your headphones communicate using Bluetooth, and a Bluetooth signal can be interfered with or weakened in some situations.
Your headphones may lose their connection with streaming audio more often than they do with content that is stored on your device.* With your device placed a metre or so away from you, try listening to music or other audio content that's stored on your device – not streamed – with your headphones. On your iOS or Android device, open the Music app. On a Mac device with macOS Catalina, open the Music app. On a Mac with macOS Mojave or earlier, or on a PC, open iTunes. Then play a song that does not have the Download button
next to it. Or tap the Download button to download the song.
If your headphones maintain their connection without distortion during this test, here are a couple of things that can help in other situations:
Keep your iPhone or other device close to you, and ensure that there are no obstructions, such as walls or floors, between you and your device.
If possible, move to a different place – in particular, move away from places where there are many people or a lot of Wi-Fi activity, poorly shielded cables, microwave ovens and wireless speakers (or turn off the oven or speaker).
If your headphones keep disconnecting
If you've tested your headphones as described in the previous section and the audio keeps disconnecting or cutting in and out, unpair your headphones and then pair them again.
Unpair your headphones
Unpair from an iPhone device:
Tap Settings > Bluetooth.
Find the device you want to unpair and tap the Info button
.Tap Forget this Device.
Unpair from a non-Apple device:
On your non-Apple device, go to the settings for Bluetooth and make sure Bluetooth is on. For example, on an Android device, go to Settings > Connected devices > Connection preferences > Bluetooth.
Unpair – or forget – your headphones.
Restart your non-Apple device.
Pair your headphones again
Pair – or connect – your headphones again. Find instructions for your headphones and the device you want to pair them with:
If your headphones continue to disconnect, contact Apple Support.
* Your audio source, such as an iPhone or Mac device, Windows computer or an Android mobile phone
