How to charge your AirPods Max and learn about battery life

Learn how to charge your AirPods Max and get longer battery life.

To charge your AirPods Max, plug the Lightning cable that came with your AirPods Max into the bottom-right earphone. You can use a USB-C to Lightning Cable or a USB to Lightning Cable. Then plug the other end of the cable into a USB charger or port.

To charge your AirPods Max inside the Smart Case, align the cutout on the case with the Lightning port on the headphones. When you’re not using your AirPods Max, keep them in the Smart Case to put them into an ultralow power mode to preserve battery charge.

Learn about battery life

When the battery charge of your AirPods Max is low, you get a notification on the screen of your iPhone or iPad. You get notifications when the charge is at 20, 10, and 5 percent remaining.

You also hear a tone when the battery charge is low. You hear the tone one time when the battery charge is at 10 percent, and a second time right before AirPods Max turn off.

Here’s what you can expect:

• Your AirPods Max can get up to 20 hours of listening time, talk time, or movie playback when you have Active Noise Cancellation and spatial audio turned on.1
• If you charge your AirPods Max for 5 minutes, you get around 1.5 hours of listening time.2
• If you set your AirPods Max down and leave them stationary for 5 minutes, they go into a low power mode to preserve battery charge. After 72 stationary hours out of the Smart Case, your AirPods Max go into a lower power mode that turns off Bluetooth and Find My to preserve battery charge further.
• If you put your AirPods Max in the Smart Case when you’re not using them, they go into a low power mode immediately to preserve battery charge. After 18 hours in the Smart Case, your AirPods Max go into an ultralow power mode that turns off Bluetooth and Find My and maximizes battery life.

Check the charge status

The status light on the right earphone shows the charge status of your AirPods Max.

If you press the noise control button when your AirPods Max are connected to power, the status light will turn green if the charge has more than or equal to 95 percent remaining, or amber if the charge has less than 95 percent remaining.

If you press the noise control button when your AirPods Max aren’t connected to power, the status light will turn green if the charge has more than or equal to 15 percent remaining, or amber if the charge has less than 15 percent remaining.

You can also check the charge status of your AirPods Max with your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Mac.

On your iOS device

Hold your AirPods Max close to your device. Wait a few seconds or press the noise control button to see the charge status of your AirPods Max.

You can also check the charge status of your AirPods Max with the Batteries widget on your iOS device.

On your Mac

1. Take your AirPods Max out of the case.
2. Click the Bluetooth icon   in the menu bar.
3. Hover the pointer over your AirPods Max in the menu.

1. Testing conducted by Apple in November 2020 using preproduction AirPods Max and software paired with iPhone 12 Pro Max units and prerelease software. Testing consisted of full AirPods Max battery discharge while playing one of the following: a music playlist consisting of 358 unique audio tracks purchased from the iTunes Store (256-Kbps AAC encoding), a cellular phone call, or a 2-hour 23-minute movie purchased from the iTunes Store until the AirPods Max stopped playback. Volume was set to 50%, Active Noise Cancellation on, and Spatial Audio on and active only during movie playback. Battery life depends on device settings, environment, usage, and many other factors.

2. Testing conducted by Apple in November 2020 using preproduction AirPods Max and software paired with iPhone 12 Pro Max units and prerelease software. The playlist consisted of 358 unique audio tracks purchased from the iTunes Store (256-Kbps AAC encoding). Volume was set to 50%, Active Noise Cancellation on, and Spatial Audio on but not active. 5-Minute charge testing conducted with drained AirPods Max that were charged for 5 minutes, then audio playback was started until the AirPods Max stopped playback. Battery life depends on device settings, environment, usage, and many other factors.

Published Date: January 08, 2021

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