Guide

The iPhone Water Eject shortcut

Written and maintained by Muhammad Usama · Last checked: 2026-09-14

The iPhone has no built-in water eject feature — the Apple Watch does, the phone never has. What people mean by "the Water Eject shortcut" is a community-built Shortcuts automation that plays a 165 Hz tone. Here is what it actually does, and whether you need it.

What it actually does

Strip away the presentation and every version of this shortcut does the same three things: set the volume to maximum, play a low-frequency audio file for around thirty seconds, and optionally restore the previous volume afterwards.

That is the whole mechanism. There is no private API, no special hardware access, nothing Apple built for this. It is a sound file played loudly. The tone drives the speaker cone through its full travel, which breaks the surface tension holding water against the grille and pumps it out — the same physics described on our 165 Hz page.

Which means a web page can do exactly the same thing, and that is what the tool below is.

Building your own shortcut

Worth doing if you want it offline and on your home screen. There is one genuine obstacle: Shortcuts cannot generate a tone. There is no action that synthesises audio, so your shortcut needs an actual audio file to play, and you have to supply it.

Get a 165 Hz audio file. Generate one with any audio editor — Audacity is free and does this in about a minute — and save it to your iPhone's Files app. Thirty seconds of a 165 Hz sine wave is all you need.
Open Shortcuts and tap the plus button to create a new shortcut.
Add "Set Volume" and set it to 100%.
Add "Wait" for one second. This is the step most guides omit, and it is why so many shortcuts play quietly — without it the volume change can land before the audio session is ready.
Add "Get File" and point it at your audio file.
Add "Play Sound" using that file as input.
Optionally add "Set Volume" again at the end to restore a comfortable level.
Name it and add it to your home screen via the share sheet.

If you install a prebuilt one instead, open it and read the actions before you run it. Most are fine, but a shortcut that downloads an audio file from somewhere is worth a glance at the URL first. That is sensible practice for any shortcut you did not write yourself, not a specific warning about this one.

Shortcut or web page?

	Shortcut	Web tool
Setup time	Ten minutes, plus making an audio file	None
Works offline	Yes	After first load
Home screen icon	Yes	Add to Home Screen from Safari
Change frequency	Needs a new audio file	Switch mode, or use the tone generator
Sweeps rather than fixed tone	No	Yes
Dust mode	Needs a second file and shortcut	Built in
Works on non-Apple devices	No	Yes

The honest summary: if your phone gets wet regularly and you want a home screen button that works with no signal, build the shortcut. Otherwise a web page does the same job with zero setup and gives you sweeping and dust modes for free.

Why the Apple Watch version is different

The Apple Watch water lock is a real Apple feature, and it is worth understanding why Apple built it there and not on the phone.

A watch is designed to be swum in. Apple knew water would routinely get into the speaker cavity, so they built ejection into the product — you enable water lock before swimming, and turning the Digital Crown afterwards fires a series of tone bursts that clear the case.

A phone is not designed to be swum with. It is designed to survive an accident. Apple's position is that you should not be putting it in water deliberately, so there is no ejection feature — and when it does happen anyway, you are on your own. Which is why the community built one.

Common problems

It plays quietly. Add a Wait action after Set Volume. Check Reduce Loud Sounds is off under Settings, Sounds and Haptics, Headphone Safety.
Nothing comes out of the phone. Audio is going to AirPlay or Bluetooth. Check the Control Centre audio card and turn Bluetooth off entirely.
It runs but the speaker is still muffled. Repeat it two or three more times, wiping the grille between runs. See the iPhone page for which grille to point down — it is not the one most people assume.
The shortcut will not run. Allow untrusted shortcuts under Settings, Shortcuts, if you installed it from outside the gallery.

Frequently asked questions

Does the iPhone have a built-in water eject feature?

No. The Apple Watch has one — that is the water lock you unlock with the Digital Crown — but Apple has never shipped an equivalent on iPhone. Every iPhone water eject shortcut is community-made, which is why they all work slightly differently.

Are Water Eject shortcuts safe to install?

They are just Shortcuts, so they cannot access anything without asking. The thing worth checking is what audio file a shortcut downloads and from where. Open it and read the actions before running it rather than tapping through the prompts — good practice for any shortcut you did not write.

Why does my shortcut play at low volume?

Usually because the Set Volume action runs before the audio session is active, so iOS applies it to the wrong output. Adding a short Wait action after Set Volume fixes it on most devices. It is also worth checking Reduce Loud Sounds is off under Sounds and Haptics.

Is the shortcut better than a web page?

It has one real advantage: it works offline and lives on your home screen, which is genuinely useful if this happens often. Otherwise a web page does the same job with nothing to set up, and it is easier to change frequency or duration.

What frequency do these shortcuts use?

Nearly all of them use 165 Hz, because that is the value the Shortcuts community converged on early and everyone copied. It works well, though it is a convention rather than a precisely derived number — there is more on that on our 165 Hz page.

Can I build one without downloading an audio file?

Not easily. Shortcuts has no action that synthesises a tone, so a shortcut needs an actual audio file to play. That is the main reason building your own is more fiddly than it sounds, and why most people just install a prebuilt one or use a web tool.