Use This Shortcut to Expel Water From Your iPhone

Your iPhone is water-resistant, and its IP68 rating means it can survive a swim in up to six meters of water for as long as 30 minutes and things should still be fine. In theory. (This doesn’t mean you should use your phone as an underwater camera; if water does make its way inside, you’ll still face a huge repair bill or be stuck with a bricked phone.) But even if it will ultimately survive a drop into the drink, when you first fish it out, some moisture might still remain in the speakers and the earpiece. This isn’t good news for the long-term durability of your device, and will result in poor audio quality in the short term.

Apple already solved this problem with the Apple Watch with a setting that will play a series of tones at a particular frequency that causes the water lodged within the wearable’s speakers to spew out. The iOS Shortcut community has now taken this idea and run with it creating an Eject Water shortcut for your iPhone that does something similar. Here’s how to set it up.

How to remove water from your iPhone’s speaker

Find the shortcut, called “Water Eject,” on this Shortcuts Gallery website. Once there, click the “Get Shortcut” button, which will open the Shortcuts app. Tap the “Add Shortcut” option.

If your iPhone issues you a warning saying the shortcut can’t be installed, it might be a permissions issue. To solve this problem, go to Settings > Shortcuts > Allow Untrusted Shortcuts.

Once the shortcut is installed, you can trigger it in multiple ways. Open the Shortcuts app, and tap on the shortcut, then tap the “Begin Water Ejection” button at the top of the screen.

Your iPhone will play a tone for 10-15 seconds, after which you’ll see a notification saying the water has been expelled from your speaker.

If you want, you can add this shortcut to the home screen, a widget, or trigger it using Siri. Simply saying “Hey Siri, water eject” will do the trick.