The best AirPods setting to change if you hate background noise

There’s one thing in common between a room with a fan running and a bustling cafe: both can get pretty noisy. If you’ve ever tried to work in such an environment, you probably can’t concentrate much with all the background noise. Fortunately, Apple offers a clever solution to this dilemma with AirPods. You may have bought a pair for their impressive sound quality, but beyond listening to music and videos, AirPods can also double as earplugs. There’s only one AirPods setting you need to change to do just that, a listening mode called Active Noise Cancellation (ANC).

ANC uses the AirPods’ built-in microphones to minimize background noise reaching your ears. This makes the environment much quieter while ANC is on. It works differently from other AirPods listening modes. Transparency mode, as the name suggests, keeps you aware of your surroundings by transmitting every sound, including background noise, to your ear. Adaptive mode, on the other hand, is a dynamic mode that intelligently analyzes surrounding sounds and decides how much noise to block.

ANC is available on AirPods 5, AirPods 4 ANC, AirPods Pro (all generations), and AirPods Max (all generations). If you own one of these models, here’s a guide on how to use this must-have AirPods feature.

Out of the box, your AirPods are already set up to switch between Noise Cancellation and Transparency modes with a simple gesture. On AirPods Pro and AirPods 4 ANC, simply press and hold the stem of your AirPods long enough until you hear a chime and the background noise disappears. If you have AirPods Max, press the listening mode button at the top of the right earbud instead. Conveniently, you can also enable noise cancellation on your AirPods through the device they’re connected to. Just make sure you’re wearing both AirPods before making changes, otherwise you won’t be able to access the listening mode settings.

To enable noise cancellation using your iPhone or iPad, open the Control Panel with a simple swipe down and long-press the volume slider. Then select Listening mode and press Noise cancellation. You can also make this change in your device’s Bluetooth settings. In the Settings application, go to Bluetooth and tap the information icon next to your connected AirPods. You should then see the Noise cancellation option under Listening mode at the top of the page.

Meanwhile, on your Mac, simply tap the AirPods icon at the top right of the screen. Below To go outclick on your connected AirPods and select Noise cancellation of the Noise control section. If you have an Apple Watch, the AirPods listening mode settings are also accessible from the Control Center. First, play music, then select your AirPods in Control Center. From there, tap Noise Cancellation to enable it. When you want to turn off noise cancellation on your AirPods, simply repeat the same steps. But this time, choose Transparency as a way of listening.

By default, if you try to enable noise cancellation with only one AirPod in your ears, an error appears stating that you must wear both earbuds to use this feature. This makes sense; after all, you can’t really take advantage of the AirPods’ noise-cancelling feature if your other ear is completely exposed to ambient noise. But while this is the default behavior, Apple actually lets you enable noise cancellation even if you’re only using one AirPod. This is one of the AirPods features that you need to enable manually, so you need to enable it first. Follow these steps:

1. With your AirPods connected to your iPhone, open Control Center.
2. Long press the Bluetooth tile.
3. Go to Bluetooth settings.
4. Tap the information icon next to your AirPods.
5. Scroll to Accessibility.
6. To light up Noise cancellation with an AirPod.

From here, you can now select noise cancellation in the listening modes as you normally do. The active AirPod will start blocking noise from that side only. Based on our testing with an AirPods Pro 3, noise-cancelling performance is still surprisingly good, even with a single AirPod.