How to Listen to iPhone Audio Messages by Raising the Phone to Your Ear

Co-authored by wikiHow Staff

Last Updated: May 15, 2018

This wikiHow teaches you how to enable the Raise to Listen feature on the iPhone. This feature allows you to listen to audio messages and voice messages by placing the phone to your ear, instead of having to tap the play button.

Part 1

Part 1 of 2:

Enabling Raise to Listen

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The icon will appear as a set of grey gears located on the Home Screen.
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It is located in the fifth set of menu options.

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It will turn green. This will allow you to listen to voice messages or audio in text messages just by raising the phone to your ear.

Part 2

Part 2 of 2:

Using Raise to Listen

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Its icon has a white talk bubble and can be found on the Home Screen.
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Audio messages will appear in the conversation with a play button next to a simple wave form (a wavy shape).
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The message will automatically start to play. After you have listened to the audio message, you can raise the phone to your ear once more or wait for a short beep to automatically respond to the message.

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How to Listen to iPhone Audio Messages by Raising the Phone to Your Ear

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Enabling Raise to Listen

Using Raise to Listen

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