How to make your Android phone louder
Set the volume for media, alarm and ringer to the maximum
A mistake people often do is only raise the volume for Android media playback, which doesn’t affect the alarm or ringer volume levels – those remain quiet. Here’s how to raise the volume of all three…
Click on one of your phone’s volume keys and you’ll see a volume indicator popup appear. It should look similarly or exactly like the one shown here:
Before this popup goes away, tap its Settings button (see screenshot above) and the three separate volume controls for media, alarm and ringer will appear. Slide all three to their maximum and see if this makes your phone loud enough.
Check if your phone has a built-in equalizer and use it
Some smartphones, for example those made by Samsung come with built-in sound equalizers. You can use those to boost your phone’s volume. If you’re using a Samsung phone, here’s exactly how to do that…
Slide your finger from the top of your screen to reveal your quick settings, then tap the gear icon to open Settings.
Now that you’re in your phone’s Settings menu, tap “Sounds and vibration”, then scroll down and tap “Sound quality and effects”.
If there’s an “Equalizer” option here, you’re in luck! Tap it. Then adjust the equalizer as shown below, which will boost the higher frequencies of your Samsung phone’s speaker, at the expense of sound quality.
Download a sound booster app
The Google Play Store is full of sound booster apps, which are essentially sound equalizers, so it’s okay if your phone didn’t come with one.
Some of those apps can be a bit shady, asking for too many permissions, so we’d recommend going with “Music Volume EQ”. It’s an app that has been available for several years now and has a high user rating. It has ads like most sound booster apps, but if you find it useful, there’s an option to remove the ads with a single $3.99 payment.
Once you have the app installed, open it and grant it the permissions it requires to function. The app’s interface is straightforward and simple, just raise the volume control as high as you want it to be.
Be warned that going all the way up should be needlessly way too loud for any phone, so if even then your phone sounds quiet, its speaker is most likely busted, and there’s nothing more that could be done.
How to make your Android phone ring louder
If your Android phone is fine in terms of general loudness, but seems to ring way too quietly, here’s what you can try…
Make sure the ringer volume is at its maximum
By simply using the volume keys of your phone, you’re usually only raising the phone’s volume for media playback, and not the ringer volume.
To raise the ringer volume, click on one of your phone’s volume keys and a volume indicator similar to this one should appear:
Before this volume indicator popup goes away, tap its Settings button (see screenshot above) and you’ll now get access to all the three separate volume controls, for media, alarm and ringer. The one with a bell icon is the ringer, so slide it all the way up. If you’re unsure which one is the ringer, just slide all three to their max. See if your phone rings louder now.
Make sure your ringtone is loud enough or try a different one
If the previous step didn’t work, your ringtone might just be too quiet. Slide from the top of your phone screen and click the gear icon to enter Settings.
From the Settings menu, tap “Sound & vibration”, then scroll down and tap “Phone ringtone”.
From here you can pick from all the preloaded ringtones that are on your phone. Find the one that sounds loudest to you and see if that fixes your problem. If not, try downloading a sound booster app, as recommended earlier.
How to make your iPhone louder
Assuming you’ve already pressed the volume up button on your iPhone and raised the volume as high as it can go, but it’s still not loud enough, here’s what else you can try…
Turn on the Loudness equalizer preset
If music sounds too quiet on your iPhone, try boosting the sound via its built-in equalizer.
Tap on the Settings button, then scroll down and find the Music option. Once you tap on that, find and tap on EQ. Lastly, tap on the Loudness preset, and see if this boosted your iPhone’s sound enough.
Disable the Volume Limit setting
Your iPhone may have Volume Limit enabled. Tap on the Settings icon, then in the search bar, write down “volume”. If a “Volume Limit” option appears, tap on it, then slide the Volume Limit slider to the right.
How to make your iPhone ring louder
Let’s make sure your ringer is set to be as loud as possible. Tap the Settings icon, then tap “Sounds & Haptics”. From here, simply slide the “Ringer and Alerts” volume slider to the right.
When this slider is set all the way to the right, your ringer volume will be at its maximum.
If you still find your iPhone’s ringtone to be too quiet, tap on “Ringtone”, where you can go through all the preloaded ringtones and select the one that sounds loudest to you.
