The beauty of Apple’s AirPods is that they connect in seconds (if you have an iPhone or iPad). Flip the lid, tap ‘Connect’ when the card appears, job done, and back to pretending you can’t hear your kids or colleagues. If that’s all you’ve done, though, you’ve been missing out.
Apple tucks many features and settings behind that single tap, and most are off or buried three menus deep, so unless you know where to look, you might miss them. Spend 10 minutes reading this delight of a feature, followed by 10 more minutes in the Apple settings menu for your AirPods, and the same buds will sound better, last longer and do a lot more. These are the tweaks worth making first – and don’t worry, you don’t need a screwdriver or a manual.
Run the ear tip fit test
The Apple AirPods Pro 3 come with five ear tips in the box, and if that’s news to you, we’ve got more work to do here than I thought. Almost every great feature of these earbuds depends on a good seal. Too small, and noise cancellation won’t be anywhere near as good as it should be, bass will be thin, and perhaps worst of all, the buds will wobble around when you move. Too big, and it will feel like someone is slowly inflating a balloon in each ear.
The medium tips are fitted by default, and while they will suit plenty of people, they won’t be perfect for everyone. Your left and right ears may even need different sizes. The Acoustic Seal test uses the microphones in each AirPod to measure how well the tip seals your ear canal. Do it – it’s worth it.
How: With both AirPods in, go to Settings, tap your AirPods’ name, then choose ‘Test Acoustic Seal’. Find somewhere quiet, run the test, and swap sizes on any side that prompts you to adjust.
Protect the battery
Like your iPhone, your AirPods will learn your routine and hold their charge at around 80 per cent until shortly before you usually reach for them. For me, that’s every morning at 9am on my walk back from the school run, and 7pm every evening for my dog walk.
Lithium-ion batteries are known to wear out faster when they sit at full charge for hours, which is what happens to AirPods when they are in their case – like holding a plank until you’re told to stop. The batteries in AirPods Pro aren’t user-replaceable, so slowing that wear is a good way to keep your buds going for longer.
How: With your AirPods connected, go to Settings, tap your AirPods’ name, tap on ‘Battery’ and toggle ‘Optimised Charge Limit’ on.
Let Conversation Awareness do the pausing
Conversation Awareness is one of my favourite features of AirPods – and while I’m talking about the AirPods Pro here, some of the tips, including this one, apply to other models too. When enabled, if you start speaking, your AirPods will automatically lower the music so you can hear what is being said to you or around you.
It stops you from yanking out an AirPod every time someone tells you how cute your dog is, only to drop it in a field and never see it again. When you stop chatting, the volume automatically returns to normal. One word of warning, though. It lowers the volume of audiobooks and podcasts too, so if you were hoping it might pause instead, it won’t. You’ll need to hit those 15-second rewind buttons instead.
How: Go to Settings on your iPhone, tap your AirPods’ name, and select ‘Audio & Routing’. From here, toggle on Conversation Awareness. You can also long-press the volume slider in Control Centre and make sure Conversation Awareness is blue. If it kicks in every time you belt out the chorus of your favourite track, it’s just as easy to switch off.
Personalise Spatial Audio
Out of the box, Spatial Audio is tuned for an average listener on AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods Pro 3, digitally placing sounds around you for a more immersive experience when listening to or watching compatible content. The Personalised Spatial Audio feature, however, creates an individual profile for you, so the effects land where they should for you. The feature uses your iPhone’s front-facing camera to map the shape of your head and ears, then tailors 3D audio to fit. It’s stored in iCloud, so it follows you to your other Apple devices, too.
How: Go to Settings on your iPhone, tap your AirPods, and scroll down to ‘Audio & Routing’. Under Spatial Audio, choose ‘Personalised Spatial Audio’ and follow the prompts, which ask you to turn your head slowly while the camera captures each ear. You will look like a confused owl, so this is one to try at home.
Set up left-behind alerts in Find My
In the Find My app on iPhone, you can set it to notify you the moment you walk off without your AirPods (this works for your other devices too). This tip has stopped me from leaving my AirPods Pro 3 in a hotel – the white case and white sheets on the bed are a poor combination.
Finding lost AirPods after the fact can be a real hassle – I once walked around a field for an hour looking for one AirPod (I did find it, in case you’re wondering). Being warned before you’ve left the pub is a much better scenario, though. It means you never get too far before you have to go back. The AirPods Pro 2, AirPods Pro 3 and the latest AirPods 5 with the Wireless Charging Case also have a built-in speaker in the case that you can ping, and compatible iPhones can guide you to them using Precision Finding.
How: Open Find My on your iPhone, select your AirPods under the ‘Devices’ tab and tap on the three small dots in the grey circle. You can then toggle on Notify When Left Behind under the ‘Notify Me’ section. You can add locations as exceptions to reduce false alarms, though that might mean you forget your AirPods at home for your morning commute and that wouldn’t be ideal.
Give each stem its own job
By default, the stem controls on each AirPod perform the same functions. This means that no matter which ear you use, you can press once to pause, twice to skip a track, three times to go back a track, and hold to switch between noise modes.
With both doing the same, though, you waste a perfectly good second ear, especially when the press-and-hold gesture on each AirPod Pro can be set independently. Splitting duties, such as assigning noise control to the left and Siri to the right, gives you extra controls without having to pull out your phone.
How: In Settings on your iPhone, tap your AirPods, then tap‘Controls & Gestures’. Under ‘Press and Hold AirPods’, choose an action for the Left and Right. If squeezes feel too twitchy or too sluggish, you can also adjust press speed and hold duration under Accessibility in the AirPods settings.
Switch to Adaptive Audio
Apple’s AirPods Pro 3 and the latest AirPods 5 both feature active noise-cancellation mode to block out background noise, such as a plane engine or chatty passengers on a train. They also have a transparency mode so you can hear what is happening around you.
But rather than flicking between the two all day like an indecisive DJ, Adaptive Audio automatically blends noise cancellation and Transparency. It will turn noise cancellation up or down to suit your surroundings, and with Personalised Volume, it learns your habits and nudges levels to match where you are.
How: Long-press the volume slider in Control Centre, then select Adaptive. On the latest iOS, you can fine-tune how much outside sound gets through by moving the slider. To do this, open Settings on your iPhone, tap your AirPods, select Adaptive Audio, then move the slider to suit.
Get Siri to read your messages
A feature called Announce Notifications allows Siri to read incoming messages and notifications when you’re wearing your AirPods, so you know what’s happening on your phone without having to take it out. You can also reply using your voice. It’s a great feature if you’re on a bike, holding a dog lead, or elbow-deep in cooking dinner. You choose which apps can chime in, too, so you don’t have to have the entire family’s WhatsApp read aloud, emoji and all, if you don’t want to.
How: Go to Settings on your iPhone, then Notifications and make sure Announce Notifications is toggled on. You can then pick the apps you want Siri to tell you notifications from.
Answer calls with a nod
Head Gestures is another of my favourite AirPods features, and once you turn it on, you won’t go back. It’s available on all the latest AirPods models, letting you nod to accept a call or respond to Siri, and shake your head to decline. It might sound gimmicky, but you’ll be grateful for it when you’re carrying shopping or have floury hands. It’s also much less awkward than blurting out ‘No’ or ‘Yes’ on a packed train, even if fellow passengers may think you’re agreeing with them.
How: In Settings on your iPhone, tap your AirPods, then tap on ‘Control & Gestures’ and toggle ‘Head Gestures’ on.
Take the Hearing Test
Last but certainly not least, AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods Pro 3 can run a hearing check that takes about five minutes and saves the results to the Health app. It gives you a baseline to track over time. If it detects mild to moderate hearing loss, your AirPods can double as an over-the-counter hearing aid where the feature is approved. It’s also worth handing to the relative who insists the telly has always been this loud.
How: In Settings on your iPhone, tap your AirPods and tap on ‘Hearing Health’. From here you can choose ‘Take a Hearing Test’. Sit somewhere quiet and tap each time you hear a tone. If the results worry you, book a proper test with an audiologist.
Read more: Apple iPhone 18 Pro vs 18 Pro Max vs iPhone Air: I’ve tested all three, but which should you buy?
