How to Fix: Why Won't My iPhone Vibrate?
Written by Tijana - Reviewed by Tanja Gadgets / Apple iPhone
Getting a lot of missed calls and missed notifications on your iPhone might mean there are issues with your phone settings, or the vibration motor on your phone.
Plenty of iPhone users, especially those running on iOS 14, have been complaining about their phones not vibrating, so it might be a tiny bug that can be easily fixed.
As we mentioned, there are two possible issues as to why you’re experiencing an issue of this sort, either your phone settings have been changed (there are several setting changes that could have affected this), or your vibration motor has stopped working entirely.
Whichever the reason may be, we have created a step-by-step guide to help you fix your phone at home, if possible.
How do I check what’s wrong with my phone?
First things first, you’ll need to make sure your vibration motor hasn’t stopped working entirely.
To make sure this particular part of your phone is working fine, on your phone, switch the button that’s above the volume buttons.
If your phone does not vibrate once changed from ‘Ringer’ to ‘Silent’, this might mean the motor is not working properly.
It is not recommended trying to fix this at home, your best solution is taking your phone to an Apple authorized repair shop.
- Note: this ‘trick’ will only work if under your phone Settings you have ‘Vibrate on Silent’ and ‘Vibrate on Ring’ activated.
Making adjustments from the phone Settings
The best thing to check is your phone settings.
At times, phones make changes such as these even without you telling them.
This might occur after making a system update, as a result of a bug.
If you're also having issues with your iPhone volume buttons not working, check out some possible solutions to fix them.
To make sure the right settings are activated on your phone, follow these steps:
1. Checking your Vibration Settings
To check your Vibration Settings, open your phone Settings, and look for ‘Sounds & Haptics’ in the menu, or type it in in the Search bar.
Under ‘Vibrate’, make sure ‘Vibrate on Ring’ and ‘Vibrate on Silent’ are both set as ‘On’.
Try checking your vibrations after finishing this step. If you keep having issues, move to Step 2.
2. Checking Vibration Patterns
If you’re still experiencing problems after going through Step 1, you’ll need to check for Vibration Patterns.
Open your phone Settings, and go to ‘Sounds & Haptics’. Next, click on ‘Ringtone’ and go to ‘Vibration’.
Click through the Vibrations that are offered, and change to the one you want.
3. Checking your Accessibility Settings
To check Accessibility Settings, go to your phone Settings, and in the second section click on ‘Accessibility’.
Scroll down, find the ‘Vibration’ option, click on it, and make sure it’s set as ‘On’.
4. Focus Mode or Do Not Disturb
iOS users are familiar with the DND mode which has been around for years.
However, there are currently several modes available besides for DND, make sure you don’t have any of them activated since this would cause your phone not to ring, nor give any signals when you’re getting notifications.
Swipe down from the right part of the screen, and the Control Center will show up.
Click on the moon icon to make sure it’s not activated.
5. Restarting your phone
The oldest trick in the book - restarting a gadget. It may sound simple, but it helps give your phone a ‘nudge’, so it might solve the issue.
You can also try turning it off, waiting a couple of minutes, and turning it back on.
6. Updating your software
Running on an older software may cause your phone to make issues such as these. Try updating your software to keep your phone in an optimal solution.
If none of the possible solutions we went through fixed your vibrations, you might need to bring your iPhone to the nearest Apple Authorized repair shop.
As we previously mentioned, your vibration motor might have stopped working, and you might need to get it changed.
