Why cant I turn off the shutter sound on my iPhone?

Apple

Apple tries to simulate the experience of a snapshot camera when you take a picture in the Photos app on an iPhone or iPad by issuing a little click sound. Many of us prefer to avoid that sound.

Remarkably, there’s no click on/off switch in the Camera settings! Instead, you have one of three alternatives:

• Enable Live Photo: If you’re hearing a click, you don’t have this feature turned on, which retains some still images from before and after the point at which you take pictures, providing some animation—and audio. If the click were on, it would be captured in a Live Photo. You can have Live Photo always on when you launch the Camera by enabling Settings > Camera > Preserve Settings > Live Photo.

• Mute switch: With the hardware Ring/Silent switch set to Silent, the snapshot sound is disabled. You can flip this switch on and off at will if you prefer to have the click off sometimes and on at others. However, the Silent switch is a system-wide mute, so no iPhone sounds will be made.

• Set system volume to zero: You can also or instead set your alert sounds volume to zero. If Settings > Sounds & Haptics > Change with Buttons is enabled, you can use the Control Center or the side volume down button. However, if that switch is disabled, you have to separately slide the Ringer and Alerts level to the far left in Settings > Sounds & Haptics.

One further note: A few countries require a shutter sound on devices that take photos. While in those countries, which include Japan and South Korea, the snapshot sound will always trigger. It appears to be based on the SIM, as travelers from other countries who swap in a local SIM find their snapshot preference overridden.

This Mac 911 article is in response to a question submitted by Macworld reader Ron.

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The use of Live Photo features affects camera sounds

What to Know

• Disable the camera shutter sound using the Live Photo feature. Go to Settings > Camera > Preserve Settings and turn on Live Photo.
• Mute the phone's ringer. To mute, toggle the switch on the left side of the phone.
• Access Control Center and lower the volume. Swipe down from the upper-right corner of the screen and move the volume slider to zero.

This article explains how to suppress the shutter sound an iPhone makes when you snap a photo. Except where noted, these instructions apply to all iPhone models with any version of iOS.

Activating Live Photos Affects the Shutter Sound

When Apple added Live Photos to the iPhone, the camera sound that played when a picture was taken disappeared by default, even with all the phone sounds on. This change proved beneficial because a Live Photo captures a few seconds of sound while recording a picture, and if the camera plays the shutter sound, that’s all you’d hear when viewing that Live Photo. If you use Live Photos, toggle the feature on and off in the Camera app. When it is toggled on, no shutter sound plays.

The Live Photos feature requires at least iOS 9 and an iPhone 6S or newer.

To permanently activate the Live Photo feature, go to Settings > Camera > Preserve Settings and turn on the Live Photo toggle switch.

Exit the Settings app and go to the Camera app. If Live Photos is enabled and toggled on in the Camera app, you won’t hear any shutter sound when you take a picture. The Live Photos feature is usually activated by default.

To temporarily turn off Live Photo within the Camera app, tap the icon at the top of the camera screen that looks like three concentric circles; it's a toggle switch for the feature.

• When the three circles are yellow, Live Photo is turned on and the shutter sound is suppressed.
• When the three circles are white with a slash, Live Photo is turned off for the duration of that photography session, and you hear shutter sounds when you take photos.

Alternatives to Turn off Camera Sound on iPhone

If you don’t want to turn on the Live Photo feature but want to turn off the camera shutter sound, there are two ways you can do it.

Mute the iPhone Ringer

The first way is to silence the iPhone ringer. Toggle the switch on the left side of the phone until it shows orange. Turning off the iPhone ringer mutes sounds and gives you a silent camera when taking a picture.

Turn Volume Down in Control Center

The second method is to turn down the iPhone volume. If you want to keep the phone ringer on and keep Live Photos off, but don’t want to hear the sound when taking a photo, lower the system volume.

Start by accessing the Control Center. On an iPhone X or newer, pull down from the upper-right corner of the screen. On an iPhone 8 or older, pull up from the bottom of the screen. Slide the volume down to near zero.

How to Mute a Video on iPhone

FAQ

• How do you set a timer on the iPhone camera?

  To set a timer, open the camera app and look for the timer icon. Select the time you want—3 or 10 seconds. When the timer goes off, it takes one photo or shoots ten quick photos in Life photo mode.

• How do you get rid of a grid on the iPhone camera?

  To turn the grid on or off, open the Settings app and tap Camera > Grid.

• Which iPhone has the best camera?

  Both the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max offer Apple’s most cutting-edge camera technology.

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