Phone Microphone Not Working After Water

Which microphone is wet? A two-minute test

Most phones have a main microphone at the bottom edge next to the charging port, a second one at the top near the rear camera for noise cancelling and video, and often a third in the earpiece. Each sits behind a pinhole and each can trap water independently, which is why a phone can record a clear voice memo yet sound terrible on a call.

Test them separately. Record a voice memo while speaking normally: that uses the bottom microphone. Record a short video with the rear camera and play it back: that uses the top one. Make a call on speakerphone, then a call held to your ear: the ear call uses the bottom microphone, the speakerphone call may use the top. Whichever test sounds muffled or silent tells you where the water is.

Rule out the things that imitate a wet microphone

Before drying anything, check that the phone is not routing audio elsewhere. A pair of earbuds still paired in a bag, a car still connected, or a watch taking the call will all make the phone's own microphone seem dead. Turn Bluetooth off and test again.

Then check for a case or screen protector covering a pinhole. Cases shift after a soaking, and a slightly misaligned case over the bottom microphone muffles it exactly like water does. Remove the case for all of the tests above.

Getting water out of a microphone pinhole

A microphone port is a tiny hole with a membrane behind it, and water sits in the hole by surface tension. Hold the phone with that pinhole facing the floor and tap it firmly against your palm several times. Gravity and the impact together shift droplets that would otherwise sit for hours.

Then leave the phone pinhole-down in moving air for an hour or two: a desk fan at room temperature is ideal. The low-frequency eject tone on this site helps the speaker grille, which shares the bottom edge with the main microphone on most phones, and the vibration can dislodge water in the adjacent pinhole as a side effect. It is worth running, but the microphone itself is cleared by orientation and airflow, not by sound.

Do not blow into the pinhole, do not use compressed air, and do not insert anything. Breath adds moisture, compressed air drives water onto the membrane, and a pin or needle punctures it.

When it is damage rather than water

Water that clears leaves no trace: the microphone works normally within a day of drying. Water that carried salt, chlorine or sugar can leave residue on the membrane or corrode the contacts behind it, and that shows as a microphone that stays quiet, crackles, or cuts in and out after the phone is otherwise dry.

A microphone that is still bad three days after a thorough dry is not going to recover on its own. On most phones the bottom microphone is part of the charging-port flex assembly, which is a routine and relatively inexpensive replacement; the top microphone is often a small separate module and similarly repairable. A quote is cheap and the repair is usually far below a device replacement, so do not write the phone off over a microphone.

Keep the rest of the phone in mind

A microphone problem after water means water reached the inside of a port, so treat the whole phone as wet rather than just the pinhole. Power it off if it is behaving oddly, keep it off the charger until any liquid detection alert clears, and dry it properly. The first-aid wizard on this site walks through the right sequence for your specific exposure.