Water EjectFirst hour
Your iPhone Got Wet: What to Do in the First Hour
The order matters more than the effort. Most of the damage from a wet phone comes from what people do in the first ten minutes, not from the water itself.
Water Eject is free, for the speaker part.
Right now
Out of the water, case off, dry the outside
A lint free cloth over the whole body including the edges. A case holds a film of water against the phone for hours.
Tap it gently, connector facing down
Apple's own instruction. Tap the phone against your hand so the loose liquid leaves the ports instead of sitting in them.
Do not plug anything in
Not a cable, not headphones, not an accessory. Current through a wet connector corrodes the pins. If iOS shows the liquid detection alert, that is exactly what it is preventing.
Leave it in dry moving air, upright
Room temperature, near an open window or a fan. Not on a radiator, not in the sun, not in front of a hair dryer. Heat pushes moisture inward and stresses the seals.
Wait at least 30 minutes before you try charging
Apple's minimum, and only once the cable is dry too. A full dry out can take up to 24 hours.
Then deal with the speaker
Once the outside is dry, muffled sound is the last thing left and the easiest to fix. Volume up, speaker down, low pulsed tone. That is the routine here.
What not to do, however tempting
- No rice. Apple advises against it. It does not draw water out of a sealed phone, and the dust and small grains end up in the grille and the port.
- No heat. No hair dryer, no oven, no radiator, no car heater. Apple says not to use an external heat source.
- No compressed air. It drives liquid deeper into the phone instead of out of it.
- No shaking it hard. Gentle taps with the ports facing down, nothing more athletic.
- No turning it on and off repeatedly to see if it still works. Let it sit.
When it is more than a splash
Some liquids and some situations move this out of do it yourself territory. Get the phone to a technician, sooner rather than later, if any of these apply.
| Situation | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Sea water or a swimming pool | Salt and chlorine stay behind when the water dries and keep corroding contacts afterwards. |
| A sugary or alcoholic drink | Sugar leaves a sticky residue on everything it touched, including the speaker mesh. |
| Submerged for more than a moment | Water resistance is rated for brief exposure, and the seals age. |
| Lines, spots or a dim area on the screen | Liquid has reached the display assembly. |
| Will not charge, or the liquid alert persists after a day | Moisture is still inside the connector. |
| It got hot, or the battery drains unusually fast | A possible short. Stop using it. |
Once the phone is dry, fix the sound
A pulsed 150 Hz to 220 Hz program for the speaker, a per side test to check the result, and a 2.2 kHz tone for what the water left behind. Free, runs on device.
iPhone, iOS 17 or later.
The day after
Check three things once the phone has had a night in dry air. Does it charge normally with no alert. Does the screen look right at full brightness on a white background. Do both speakers sound equal, which is what the per side speaker test is for. If all three pass, you got away with it. If the sound is the only thing still wrong, that is the good outcome and it is usually fixable.
If the sound is dull but the phone never really got wet, the likelier answer is dust in the grille.
Questions
What should I do first if my iPhone gets wet?
Get it out of the water, take the case off and dry the outside with a lint free cloth. Then tap the phone gently against your hand with the connector facing down to shake the loose liquid out, and leave it somewhere with dry moving air. Do not plug anything in yet.
How long should I wait before charging a wet iPhone?
Apple says at least 30 minutes, and only once both the phone and the cable are dry. If the liquid detection alert keeps appearing, keep waiting. A full dry out can take up to 24 hours. Charging through a wet connector can corrode the pins and cause permanent damage.
My iPhone works but the sound is muffled after it got wet. Is that damage?
Usually not. Water sitting in the speaker grille muffles sound while everything else keeps working normally. Once the outside is dry, a low pulsed tone played with the speaker facing down often clears it. If the sound stays dull after a day of drying, or you hear crackling, have it looked at.
More guides
- How to get water out of an iPhone speakerThe five step routine, and the four things that make it worse.
- iPhone speaker sounds muffledWater, dust, a setting or real damage. Tell them apart before you fix anything.
- Clean dust out of the speaker grilleSound first, then a soft brush and tape. What never to put in the holes.
- iPhone speaker test, one side at a timeA 660 Hz tone on the left, then the right, and how to read the result.
- Water Eject shortcut or appAn honest comparison. Sometimes the free shortcut is the right answer.
- Does the iPhone have water eject?The Apple Watch clears its own speaker. The iPhone does not. Here is why.