How to Disable the iPhone Volume

By Avery Martin

Quickly disable your iPhone's volume without accessing the settings menu.
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The iPhone volume can be muted using software or hardware. If you're at work, school or out on a date and want to quickly silence a ringer or other audio that starts playing, the hardware option works most quickly. For more subtle volume changes, use the software settings to configure the types of content that you want to mute. This ensure that you can still use alarms and other alerts while disabling the types of content that create undesirable noise.

Hardware Switch

Step 1

Look for the Ring/Silent switch on the side of your iPhone. Unlike the other buttons on the iPhone, this switch toggles back and forth.

Step 2

Push the Ring/Silent switch toward the back of your iPhone.

Step 3

Check to make sure that the red dot appears on the inside of the switch. This indicates that the iPhone volume has been disabled for ring tones, some sound effects and play alerts. Certain sounds such as music, videos and some games that you are playing will still sound. To turn the volume all the way down on everything, use the volume switches next to the Ring/Silent switch.

Software Settings

Step 1

Tap the "Settings" app from the Home screen on your iPhone.

Step 2

Tap "Sounds."

Step 3

Turn off the option for vibrate mode. Since a vibrating iPhone can still make noise, consider sliding the "Vibrate On Ring" and "Vibrating on Silent" options to "Off."

Step 4

Move the slider under the Ringers and Alerts section all the way to the left. Then, tap the "Change With Buttons" option to "Off" if you want to ensure that the volume buttons don't accidentally turn the volume back on.

Step 5

Set the "Lock Sounds" slider to "Off." Turn the "Keyboard Clicks" slider to "Off" if you want to prevent the clicking sound when you type on your iPhone keyboard.

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