Clean your earbuds
Works on Galaxy Buds, Sony WF, Bose, Nothing Ear, JBL, Anker and any other wireless or wired earbuds. Earbuds need a gentler approach than a phone — lower volume, and never in your ears.
Take them out of your ears before you start. A sustained tone at high volume inside a sealed ear canal is a real hearing risk. Set the earbuds on a table, start the tone from your phone, and stay back while it runs. Use about half volume, not maximum.
A sustained low tone that vibrates the driver hard enough to break the surface tension of trapped water and push it out of the grille.
Turn your volume all the way up, then press start.
- Take the case off and turn Bluetooth off.
- Raise the volume to maximum with the side buttons.
- Hold the phone with the speaker facing down.
- Run the tone, wipe the grille, then repeat if it still sounds muffled.
Why earbuds clog faster than phones
An earbud lives in the worst environment of any speaker you own. It sits inside a warm, humid ear canal, pressed against skin, collecting wax and moisture, and then it goes into a sealed case where none of that can evaporate. A phone in a pocket has an easy life by comparison.
On top of that, the mesh covering an earbud driver is tiny — often a couple of millimetres across. It takes a fraction of the debris a phone grille does to block a meaningful percentage of it. This is why earbuds seem to lose volume so much faster than phones, and why one bud so often goes quiet while the other stays fine.
The good news is that the same small size means they clear easily. A moderate-volume cycle plus a brush usually restores them completely.
The routine
- Pair them and take them out of the case. They must be connected and out, or the tone plays through your phone.
- Remove the silicone tips if yours have them. Wash the tips separately in warm soapy water, dry them completely, and set them aside — they hold more wax than the mesh does.
- Set the buds mesh-down on a paper towel.
- Volume to about half. Not maximum.
- Run a cycle and step away from them.
- Brush the mesh with a dry soft brush, sweeping across it rather than into it.
- Repeat once or twice, then compare the two buds.
Sweat is the real enemy
If you train with earbuds in, sweat is doing more damage than anything else. It is not the moisture itself — that evaporates. It is what gets left behind: salt crystals that sit on the mesh and the contacts, draw moisture from the air, and slowly corrode.
The fix is routine rather than intensity. After a workout, wipe the buds with a barely damp cloth to dissolve the salt, then dry them properly, and leave them out of the case for a few minutes before putting them away. That single habit extends earbud life more than any cleaning tool.
Check your ingress rating before assuming they are safe. Most earbuds carry IPX4 or IPX5 — that means splash and sweat resistant, and explicitly not submersion. Many charging cases carry no rating at all. An IPX4 bud survives a run in the rain; it does not survive a swim.
Notes by brand
| Brand | Worth knowing |
|---|---|
| Galaxy Buds | Turn off Dolby and any equaliser in the Wearable app first. Some models have a built-in fit and sound test. |
| Sony WF series | Turn DSEE and adaptive EQ off in the Sound Connect app — they filter the low end you need. |
| Bose | Disable any EQ preset in the Bose app before running a cycle. |
| Nothing Ear | Turn off the equaliser and bass enhancement in the Nothing X app. |
| JBL / Anker Soundcore | Both apps ship with aggressive bass presets on by default. Set to flat. |
| AirPods | Separate page with Apple-specific notes. |
Frequently asked questions
Is it safe to run a cleaning tone through earbuds?
It is safe for the earbuds, at moderate volume. It is not safe for your ears — never wear them while the tone plays. A sustained tone in a sealed ear canal at high volume is a genuine hearing risk. Set them on a table and step away.
Why do earbuds need lower volume than a phone?
Two reasons. The drivers are a fraction of the size of a phone speaker, so they reach full excursion at much lower power. And there is far less material in the way — an earbud mesh holds a fraction of what a phone grille does. Half volume clears them and avoids pushing a small driver into distortion.
One earbud is much quieter than the other.
Almost always a blocked mesh rather than a fault, and the blocked one usually looks visibly duller under a bright light. Brush it with a dry soft brush and run a cycle with it mesh-down. If both buds measure equally on a hardware test but one still sounds quiet, it is a blockage.
My earbuds got soaked in sweat at the gym.
Sweat is worse than plain water because it leaves salt behind when it evaporates, and salt is mildly corrosive. Wipe them with a barely damp cloth and then a dry one, let them air out fully, and run the tone. Doing this regularly rather than once matters more than doing it thoroughly once.
Can I clean the charging case the same way?
No, the case has no speaker. But it needs cleaning more than the buds do — the two wells fill with pocket lint that sits right on the charging contacts, which is the usual reason buds stop charging reliably. Use a dry brush and a cotton bud.
Does this work on wired earphones?
Yes, exactly the same way. Plug them in, set them on a table mesh-down, and run a cycle at moderate volume. Wired earphones are often easier to clear because there is no Bluetooth routing to go wrong.