There are two ways you can turn off the camera “shutter” sound on your iPhone.
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To turn off the camera sound on your iPhone, flip the Ring/Silent switch to Silent.
You can also silence the shutter noise by enabling the Live Photos feature before taking a picture.
Since Live Photos are essentially mini-videos, they will take up more storage space than still photos.
Sometimes, you just want to snap pictures on your iPhone discreetly. Unfortunately, the camera’s shutter sound can give you away. And the annoying part is that there’s no setting you can change to silence it – a major design oversight on Apple’s part.
Luckily, there are two workarounds that can allow you to turn off the shutter noise your iPhone camera makes. That way, you can be a photo-snapping ninja.
How to turn off the camera sound on an iPhone with the ring/silent switch
The easiest way to silence the Camera’s shutter sound is to put your iPhone in Silent mode.
Just flip the Ring/Silent switch – located on the left side of your phone – down, revealing the orange color behind it, and the camera won’t make noise when taking a picture.
Flip the Ring/Silent switch to Silent mode.
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Quick tip: On older iPhones, you’ll have to flip the Ring/Silent switch away from you instead of down.
The trade-off here is that this will silence the iPhone’s ringer as well, meaning you’ll have to rely on vibrations to alert you of notifications and calls.
How to turn off the camera sound on an iPhone with Live Photos
If you don’t want to put your iPhone in Silent mode but still want to turn off the shutter noise, you can take a Live Photo — a picture that is a seconds-long mini video with audio — instead.
Here’s how to take a Live Photo on an iPhone:
Quick tip: You can only take Live Photos on iPhone 6S and newer.
1. Open the Camera app on your iPhone.
2. Check the concentric circles at the top of the screen. If they’re yellow, the Live Photos feature is on. But if they’re white with a slash running through them, it’s off – tap those white circles to enable it.
When the concentric circles at the top are yellow, Live Photo mode has been enabled.
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3. Tap the Shutter button, and you’ll notice that the camera will take a picture without making the shutter sound.
Tap the “Shutter” button.
Stefan Ionescu
Note: Live Photos take up a lot more storage space on your iPhone, so if you’re tight on space, you may not be able to use this method for long.