How To Get Airpod Pros To Stay In Ear

Keeping your AirPods in your ear may not be as easy as it sounds but these simple yet innovative solutions should save you from the hassle.

It is no secret that the Apple AirPods and AirPods Pro are two of the most popular wireless earphones ever created. In fact, the true wireless earbuds revolution can be credited to the fruit of Apple's ingenuity.

However, much like the other in its kind, the AirPods and its pro version seem to suffer from a simple yet annoying problem — occasionally falling out of the ear. Fortunately, simple problems require simple solutions and this article will tell you five of those.

Do AirPods fall out easily? What can you do to improve its fit? What accessories can prevent your earbuds from falling out? These and many more will be answered here today, so let's get to it!

Do Apple AirPods Fall Out Easily?

Answering this question is crucial to solving the problem at hand. Although they may sound simple, questions like do airpods fall out or do AirPods stay in while running cannot be easily answered by a yes or a no.

A lot of factors come into play when it comes to an earbuds' fit and the AirPods are no exemptions.

To be fair to Apple though, their perennial creation has always been known to boast a snug fit good enough to rival sports-type earbuds. After all, there has to be a reason why the AirPods are preferred by a lot of people, from casual joggers to professional athletes.

Despite that, an AirPod falling off is not that uncommon. Why so? Well, there are a handful of answers, actually.

3 Reasons Why Airpods Fall Out Easily

Apple may have the capacity to continuously restructure their earbuds but the fact remains that a couple of things might still cause the device to fall off.

The most common reasons include:

Wrong fit
Wrong silicone tips
Getting physically hit

Let's go over them one by one below.

Wrong fit

First reason why the earbuds fall off is because the AirPods might not fit well on you. The AirPods are known to be one of the best-fitting earbuds out there in the market and that's because Apple made it a point to make the device fit 90% of their consumers.

A big percentage, yes — but that leaves us with 10% who might struggle in terms of fit. On paper, this percentage may seem like a small number but considering how many Apple users there are in the world, belonging to this side of the spectrum is very much likely.

Each person has a unique ear shape and size. In fact, some studies even say ears are better identification and more unique than fingerprints. So the AirPod's one size fits all approach may very well be its largest flaw.

Silicone tips on Airpods Pro

You have to give credit to Apple for recognizing the problem about their AirPods and addressing that with a simple solution. Compared to the standard Airpods with plastic, non-replaceable tips, the AirPods Pro featured silicone tips and for a while everyone thought this solution was the right answer.

To a certain extent, the silicone tips did solve the problem of AirPods falling out of your ear. The tips came in three different sizes that basically catered to 100% of ears in the world already.

However, the silicone tips birthed a couple of new problems: it was slippery and it was prone to accumulating dirt. In fact, some users even reported that the silicone tips were much more prone to falling due to its tendency of slipping out of the ears easily.

Getting physically hit

Though quite obvious, another reason why AirPods fall out of our ears is due to external forces, particularly getting physically hit. Although both the AirPods and its Pro fit snuggly, getting hit hard by something or someone can dislodge the earbuds from your ear.

Apart from that, you may also end up hitting the earbuds while taking off your work out clothes or reaching out to fix your hair. These days, one of the more common scenarios where people usually hit off their AirPods is when they're taking off their face masks.

For all these cases, the best way really is to just be mindful when there's a potential of hitting your ears. Ensure that your AirPods are properly worn but for good measure, why not just take them for a quick second to avoid hitting and dropping them, right?

How To Make Your AirPods Fit You Better

Understandably, it can get really annoying when AirPods don't fit or when they fall out constantly. Fortunately, there are a number of easy, quick, and free solutions on how to keep your AirPods in-ear.

From simple habit changes to cheap accessories you can buy online, we'll take you through some of the most effective fixes to do in order to address this pesky problem.

Make sure you're wearing them right
Try swapping the airpods and wearing them upside down
Switch to memory foam tips (for Airpods pro)
Apply a waterproof tape
Use third-party accessories

Make sure you're wearing them right

This may sound a little too obvious for some people already but it still won't hurt to make sure that your AirPods and AirPods Pro are properly worn at all times.

When worn improperly, the chances of the earbuds getting dislodged is a lot higher.

The AirPods and AirPods Pro differ in design by a mile. As you may know the AirPods feature the same shape and approximately the same size as Apple's wired earphones. On the other hand, the AirPods Pro features silicone tips that go in much deeper in the users' ears.

This slight difference in design puts the two in their own technical categories. The Standard AirPods belong to the "earbuds" family white the AirPods Pro may be referred to as an 'in-ear monitor' or IEMS.

How to wear standard AirPods properly
How to wear Airpods Pro properly

How to wear standard AirPods properly

Here is a step-by-step guide to wearing the standard AirPods properly:

Wipe the speakers with a dampened cloth. First off, be sure to wipe off any oil, dirt, or residue from the tips of your AirPods. Oil and dirt can cause your AirPods to easily slip. By cleaning up, you'll be giving the earbuds a good "squeaky" surface that would provide more grip
Be sure to dry off the cloth a little bit first before wiping your AirPods with it as a soaking wet wipe could cause water damage.

Cleaning the tail of an AirPod with cloth

For a more detailed discussion, check out our ultimate guide to cleaning Airpods.
Press the AirPods in gently. Once it's all clean, press the AirPods in your ears and make sure that its stem is vertically aligned with your head as if it's forming a parallel line with your face. This alignment is crucial for the next step of the process.

Do not attempt to push in the AirPods too deep to the point of discomfort. This may lead to injuries and infections on your ear canal.
Rotate and wedge in the AirPods to secure the fit. Lastly, rotate the AirPods until you reach the point where the earbuds feel tight and secured. You would notice that this "locked" position happens when the stem of the AirPods are almost parallel to your jawline.

Check yourself in the mirror or take a picture so that you could save how the proper fit should look. This will give you an easier time replicating in the future.

How to wear Airpods Pro properly

AirPods Pro outside of charging case (From: Pixabay)

As compared to the standard AirPods, the Pro variant needs a little more attention — especially since it uses silicone tips. Here is a step-by-step guide to help you wear them properly:

Flip the silicone tips and check their size. Checking the size of the silicone tip you're using is a very vital step in this process. If you don't have the right silicone tip on, all the next steps in this guide would be useless. Refer to Apple's sizing guide to find out the best size for you.

Size on AirPods tip

The AirPods Pro comes in with the medium tips. Both the large and the small tips can be found on the device's box.
Align the sizing letter with the black vent. This step is so obscure that it's almost a hack. For the best fit, make sure to align the sizing letter and the black vent. You should hear a click when you've turned them properly.

Alignment spots of AirPods Pro tip and head
Press in, rotate, and wedge. Much like its predecessor, putting on the AirPods requires the whole press-rotate-wedge motion. Press in the AirPods to a comfortable fit, rotate the earbuds until you feel them wedge onto your ear.
Run an Ear Tip Fit Test. Here is a handy feature from Apple. Once you've worn the AirPods, connect them to your iPhone and head on to Settings > Bluetooth. Click the information button beside the device and press "Ear Tip Fit Test."

iPhone showing Apple Ear Tip Fit Test

If you do not see the "Ear Tip Fit Test" option, your iOS version is probably lower than version 13.2. Be sure to upgrade.

Try swapping the AirPods and wearing them upside down

Now here's a very unique tip on how to make AirPods fit better from a MacRumors user named Awimoway. According to him wearing the AirPods upside down is something that you should try out if the previous tricks did not work for you.

Admittedly, I've tried out wearing wired earphones upside down while jogging before. This is a known trick from runners that seemed to have faded through time because of wireless earbuds. Well, apparently you could still do it!

Although it may look silly, there really is no harm in trying it out in hopes of a better fit that would prevent your AirPods from falling out.

Switch to memory foam tips (for Airpods pro)

As mentioned earlier, although the silicone tips were developed with good intentions, it still produced the same problem for some AirPod users. So, why not try out another type of tip again for your device?

After silicone tips, the best material to go for is memory foam. Unlike Apple's silicone tips, memory foam easily adapts to the shape of the ear thus providing a more sealed fit.

A lot of users have been switching to memory foam and one of the most recommended brands is Foam Masters.

Black Foam Masters Memory Foam Ear Tip on AirPods Pro (From: Amazon)

Here is a step-by-step guide on how to change AirPods Pro's ear tips to memory foam:

Remove the silicone tips. You can do this by simply pulling them out until they pop out of the earbuds.
Choose the right memory foam ear tip. As a rule of thumb, your silicone tip and your memory foam tip should be the same size. You should always go for brands such as Foam Masters and others that actually follow Apple's sizing. These brands are advertised to be made for Airpods so there shouldn't be a problem when it comes to the fit.
Squeeze and push the new tips in until it's locked in. Squeeze and push the memory foam tips the same way you would do it when putting on your silicone tips. You should hear a click once the ear tip has been secured onto the earbuds already.
Squeeze and plug the AirPods in your ears. Although the installation process for the silicon and memory foam tips are the same, the methods of putting them are slightly different. When putting on your AirPods equipped with memory foam, you would need to squeeze the tip first before doing the usual push-rotate-wedge action.
It will take approximately 4 seconds before the memory foam ear tips expand and take the shape of your ears to properly seal the canal.

Apply a waterproof tape

Applying waterproof tape is another popular solution from MacRumors, this time around from a user named NewZealandMatt. Waterproof tape is naturally sticky due to the fact that it is made out of materials that resist water.

Here are the things you will need for this method:

Nexcare Absolute Waterproof Tape
Hole Punch

Now, here is a short step-by-step guide to adding waterproof tape to your AirPods.

Punch out a couple of little dots from the waterproof tape. Punch as many dots as you wish so you'll have extra ones you can use when your initial placements do not work. Also, you may need to change the tape from time to time so be sure to build a collection of your waterproof tape dots.

Punched out circles from silicon tape
Place the tape below and above the black sensor dot. This may require a little trial and error. You can even try to explore other shapes to provide a better fit for your ear. In the end, it really is up to you and what makes you comfortable. Once you're good, it should look a little like this:

AirPods with waterproof tape dots attached for grip

Use third-party accessories

If all else fails, you could look into third-party accessories to make sure that your AirPods don't fall out. These products were specifically made to address common problems and questions by users including how to make airpods fit better or how to keep them from falling out.

Since these are not Apple products, chances are you would need to remove them before putting your AirPods back in its charging case.

DamonLight AirPods Covers

The DamonLight AirPods Covers are silicone covers that give your AirPods' head additional grip. There are two variants for this: one for the standard AirPods and one for the Airpods Pro.

These silicone covers were actually developed to be thin enough to fit inside the AirPods' respective charging case but that comes with a price.

Due to its thin nature, the covers are very delicate and can be easily torn so users should be careful when putting these on.

Ahastyle Silicone AirPods Ear Hooks

The Ahastyle Silicone AirPods Ear Hooks are AirPod covers much like the DamonLight option mentioned earlier. However, what makes the two different is that the one by AhaStyle actually includes a hook and a silicon tip extension for the regular AirPods. The AirPods pro version of these covers, on the other hand, only include a hook.

Hooks are often found in earphones/earbuds designed for sports use.

If you are thinking of using your AirPods for activities that may involve hard contact with people such as playing basketball, these are worth considering.

GOGOSODU Airpods Strap

Finally, we have the AirPods strap from GOGOSODU. In terms of in-ear fit, this product won't actually do much. However, what this adds is security for your AirPods just in case the earbuds decide to pop out of your ears.

This is an insurance for those who will be doing outdoor activities where their AirPods might be dislodged easily.

Conclusion

Yes the AirPods are perhaps the most revolutionary in its kind, but it has one major flaw: staying inside your ear. The good news is that with one of the solutions provided above you, that one single flaw might just be addressed. Do the math and you'll basically get the perfect earbuds.

If you're havin gother troubles in using your Airpods, feel free to check out our other guides! With these, you can solve your Airpods connectivity issues, mic issues, or even be able to use your Airpods with Android.

Walk, run, work out, play football without having to worry about your AirPods — now isn't that nice? Tell us what activities you do with your AirPods and how you managed to keep them where they're supposed to be! Comment your best DIY or professional solutions to prevent your AirPods from falling out and we'll be sure to read through them!