Sometimes, communication through online platforms or apps doesn’t always go as smoothly as one would hope, and one of the more common issues on Discord is that you’re just too quiet for everyone else to understand, or that your microphone is acting up and being almost completely silent. Luckily, there are some things you can check and some things you can do to prevent that nobody can hear you on Discord.

So without further ado, let’s take a look!

About Discord and their voice/video calls

Before we take a closer look at the issues that may arise when you’re using Discord and a microphone, let’s take a look at a very brief history of Discord. The chat application was aimed towards voice chat in gamers when it was launched all the way back in 2012, but it has been popular all around the world and has gathered a mainstream audience by now.

Voice chats and voice channels are still a major feature and part of the Discord identity, which is why it’s important that everything works. It’s not fun when your mic is so quiet on Discord that nobody can hear you, but luckily, there are a few things you can do. Of course, video conversations – or as some people like to call it FaceTiming on Discord – are also one of the many reasons why Discord has become so popular lately, especially in post-covid times.

Even though there are dozens of video chat apps out there, Discord is one of the popular ones because it’s simple, free, offers decent video quality, and has plenty of features in servers that you can’t find anywhere else.

Is your microphone too quiet on Discord? You’re not alone.

It turns out that there are plenty of issues of people being too silent or so quiet on the Discord chat app, whether they’re on their phone or on their computer. For example, this is one of the posts over at the Linus Tech Tips forum:

On Reddit, plenty of people complain about similar things as well, as you can see below.

Most of these people have already gone over the most basic things to solve the problem, but even those things didn’t seem to work. Let’s take a look at what you can do when you’re dealing with this annoying issue.

How to fix Discord mic being too quiet for friends to hear

If your friends can’t hear you and you can hear them perfectly, there’s probably something wrong on your end. In the list below, we’ll go over all kinds of different tips and pitfalls to try and find out what’s wrong with your sound settings.

1. Make sure your friends have set up the correct voice chat settings for you

Sometimes, you being too quiet on Discord isn’t actually your fault. When you’re in a voice channel on Discord, all the participants (or your partner if it’s just two-way conservation) will have a volume slider. Make sure that your friends haven’t accidentally muted you or have set you at a lower volume. If it’s still too quiet, you can ask them to boost your microphone volume up to 200% in the voice channel.

2. Make sure that your microphone works in another app or program

Is it only Discord you’re struggling with? It’s worth checking out if your microphone hardware works flawlessly on something else. Hop on a Messenger call with someone to check this, or use the built-in microphone app on your iPhone, Android smartphone, Windows computer, or macOS computer to see if it’s working.

Is your microphone working properly and not too quiet on another app? Then you’ll have to try one of the other things on this list. If you’re having the same issues, however, that indicates a hardware fault and you will need to replace your microphone to solve it.

3. Select the desired microphone in Discord and double-check the settings

Sometimes, there are multiple microphones in a computer system, especially on laptops or when you’re using external equipment. Depending on what software you have installed, there can even be virtual microphones which complicates the whole thing even further. It’s a good idea to check the audio settings in Discord to see if your desired microphone is detected and selected. Also, make sure that it fully works, there’s a built-in audio test that you can run.

If everything is A-okay over here, there’s no reason why your Discord calls should be too quiet and the issue is likely not on your side, but on your friends’ side. You can use a regular stream of audio to communicate, but you can also use push to talk on Discord. If it’s the latter, don’t forget to press that button before you speak.

4. Restart Discord and reset voice settings

This one is going to be short: simply restart Discord, restart your phone or restart your Windows pc. You’d be surprised how many issues can be solved with a simple reboot!

And if that didn’t work, there might be something else you can check.

Head over to Discord settings at the bottom right of your small Discord audio panel, and head over to “Voice & Video“. You should be able to see a “Reset Voice Settings” button at the very bottom of this window, which should hopefully clear up any audio issues you might have. This factory resets all audio settings to their default value, un-doing any settings you might have adjusted and possible issues caused.

5. Do a hardware check-up

If you’re using a wired headset or wired earbuds to communicate with your friends on Discord, make sure that the 3.5mm jack is inserted correctly and thoroughly. If you’re using Bluetooth, re-initiate or re-pair the Bluetooth connection and make sure that there isn’t a lot of interference that could cause issues.

Sometimes, gaming headphones or other audio equipment come with a built-in mute or microphone volume rocker – it certainly wouldn’t hurt to give those a look as well.

6. Using voice-changing filters or apps? Don’t

We’ll admit, it can be pretty cool sometimes to shift your voice into that of a famous person or make you sound more high or deep. However, it is known to cause audio issues such as these, and that’s exactly what we don’t want. Sometimes they’ll even create their own virtual microphones on your Windows pc, which Discord isn’t always able to pick up on.

7. Still not working? Get in touch with Discord support

If all of the above tips and tricks aren’t helping at all and you know for a fact that your microphone is working everywhere else, we can only conclude that the problem must be a bug in Discord itself. It’s fairly common for software to have bugs like these, and this exact issue of mics being too quiet has been reported numerous times in the past. When you do get in touch with their (free) support team, definitely make sure to mention the specifics of your system, your operating system, and the microphone you’re using for quicker help.

Is your Discord mic too quiet on iPhone or Android? Here’s what to do:

A lot of the tips we’ve mentioned above are also perfectly applicable to mobile Discord users, but we’ll give you a quick rundown nonetheless. Restart the application, make sure that it’s updated, do a check-up of your audio equipment or microphone in other apps and also make sure to reset your Discord settings. Perhaps your AirPods are a bit off today or the Discord app is feeling a bit buggy? Doing all of the above should definitely solve the issue unless the microphone on your phone has become faulty and needs to be replaced.

Note: most phones actually have two microphones, one for regular calls and one for speaker calls. It’s possible that one microphone may work perfectly while the other doesn’t, so definitely try to put your phone on speaker to see if that resolves the issue.