AirPods that sound great on your iPhone can feel oddly quiet the moment you connect them to a Mac - a faint podcast, a video call you have to lean into, a film where the dialogue disappears. The fix is usually a few settings, and sometimes a system-wide boost.
Check the obvious volume traps first
Before assuming your AirPods are faulty, rule out the everyday culprits. macOS and individual apps each keep their own volume, so the quiet one wins.
- Open the volume control in the menu bar (or System Settings → Sound) and confirm your AirPods are the selected output device, then push the slider up. Raise the volume inside the app you are using too - Spotify, YouTube, QuickTime and most video calls have their own level that sits underneath the system one.
- Check the left/right balance in System Settings → Sound → Output and make sure it is centred. A slipped balance slider makes everything feel half as loud.
- Clean your AirPods. Earwax and debris on the mesh genuinely reduce output, especially on the AirPods Pro ear tips.
- If only one side is quiet, toggle Bluetooth off and on, or forget and re-pair the AirPods to clear a flaky connection.
Make sure macOS is actually using the AirPods properly
One Mac-specific gotcha: if your AirPods connect using a call-quality microphone mode, the audio can drop to a thin, quiet, low-fidelity stream. This happens when an app grabs the AirPods microphone. In System Settings → Sound, set the input to your Mac's built-in microphone (or another mic) while keeping the AirPods as the output, and the sound quality and loudness usually jump straight back up.
It is also worth keeping macOS up to date - a few people find their speakers and Bluetooth output go quiet after an update, which we cover in Mac speakers quiet after a macOS update. And if AirPods volume specifically feels capped, double-check that any hearing or sound-reduction accessibility options are switched off.
When the source itself is just too quiet
Sometimes nothing is wrong with your setup - the audio is simply recorded low. Plenty of web video, lecture recordings and conference calls are quiet at the source, so even with everything maxed you are still straining. macOS also caps how loud the system will go, and it is the same ceiling for every app and every output, AirPods included.
That is the gap a system-wide booster fills. Vlume taps your Mac's audio and pushes the volume up to 800% - eight times past the normal maximum - so quiet AirPods finally get loud. Crucially, it runs an always-on limiter that catches the peaks, so the extra loudness stays clean instead of turning into the crunchy, clipping distortion you get from simply over-driving an equaliser. It is built on Apple's modern Core Audio process-tap API, which means no kernel driver, no restart and no admin password - and it works the same whether you are on AirPods, other Bluetooth headphones or your built-in speakers.
Because the boost is system-wide, it lifts everything at once: calls, films, music and browser tabs. There is a six-band equaliser too, handy for nudging up the mid-range so speech cuts through on quiet podcasts. If you want the wider picture first, see how to make your Mac louder than maximum volume.
A quick word on the alternatives
If you would rather not boost at all, the settings fixes above solve most quiet-AirPods cases on their own. For dedicated boosters, eqMac is free and open-source and can push past 100%, but it installs a kernel-level audio driver (which needs your admin password) and has no limiter, so heavy boosting tends to distort. Boom 3D offers a strong equaliser and surround effects but does not publish a numeric boost figure and is usually sold through a subscription. Vlume's angle is a clean, big boost with a limiter, no driver and a one-time price - £39 for up to two Macs, or £59 for the family.
Give your AirPods a try with the steps above, and if you need more headroom, try Vlume free for three days - no card required.