Voice texts muffled, but not voice memos ? 🤔🤷🏽

Hello Burbanksy,

Your iPhone has multiple microphones, and each one is used with specific apps. For example, the microphone at the bottom of your iPhone uses Voice Memos and the Phone and FaceTime app, and the Camera app uses the microphone at the top.

If the quality of your audio messages in Messages is less than expected, it could be attributed to the microphone or the strength of the internet connection used to send the message. We suggest testing the microphones first.

Since you've already tested the Voice Memos app, test the microphone at the top of your iPhone next.

1. Open the Camera app.

2. Record a video while speaking at the top of your iPhone.

3. Tap the camera chooser  to switch to the other camera. Then record another video while speaking at the top of your iPhone.

4. When you play back the videos, you should hear your voice clearly.

If the microphones on your iPhone aren't working - Apple Support

• Make sure to remove any screen protectors, films, or cases that may be slightly covering a microphone and clear any debris from the openings.

All Our Best.

OMG THIS WORKED. Thank you so much!!!

Since there wasn’t a good answer here and this is my first result when I google this question, let me share what worked for me which I found 8 Reddit searches later:

Start recording your audio in Messages, immediately hit stop (pause) then hit the + (continue). This worked for me, with no explanation. You can see immediately that it’s working because the waveform actually appears.

I did aaaaallllll the other things and this is what worked for me and my iPhone 12 Mini on iOS 17.4.1. This is a problem that has followed me on this phone through several iOS updates.

I hope this helps more people. It’s a bizarre bug, and I can o my think it truly is a bug. There’s nothing wrong with audio in ANY other app/usage.