Paul Morris·

How To Use Find My AirPods Feature In iOS 10.3 And Over

With iOS 10.3 now publicly available, users have the opportunity to use the expanded Find My iPhone experience to locate lost AirPods earpiece.

We are going to provide a quick and simple overview of how to use this new feature to locate those treasured AirPods in case one or both of them go missing.

Step 1: First and foremost, you can’t use a feature which is unique to a specific version of iOS unless you are physically running that version of the platform. Launch the native Settings app, and navigate to General > Software Update. If Apple pushes through the availability of iOS 10.3 then go through the process of downloading and installing. You can find our guide on how to do that the right way, here: How To Install iOS 10.3 The Right Way. Find My AirPods is available as part of Find My iPhone app on iOS 10.3 and over.

Obviously, if you already have been through this process, and iOS 10.3 is already installed, then you can jump ahead.

Step 2: Find My iPhone does come installed by default, just make sure you are signed into the app and have Find My iPhone enabled under Settings > Apple ID > iCloud section of iOS. Alternatively, if you want to use the Safari browser, then you can simply sign into iCloud.com on the Safari browser. Either way, you’ll need to be signed into your own iCloud account.

Step 3: When signed into the iCloud account through one of the mechanisms above, you will now see the AirPods listed as a device against your account. The information will show the name assigned to the AirPods, a little image of the accessory as well as a time stamp of when the accessory was last located. There will also be a green label showing distance. To find the AirPods, simply tap on them in the list.

Step 4: This will take you to a new map interface with the AirPods highlighted front and center. You can then tap on the Play Sound option from the bottom of the interface to force the AirPods to emit a sound allowing you to locate them. Apple will also use that call-to-action to send an email to the address registered on the account alerting that the Find my AirPods feature has been activated.

The ability for the AirPods to play a “specific sound that can project across a room – and even farther” is extremely help in locating the hardware, but can be pretty problematic if you happen to be wearing the left AirPods earpiece, but looking for the right, or vice versa. Thankfully there is also the opportunity to physically mute the output from a specific AirPods earpiece to solve this issue.

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