When you press one of the volume buttons on your iPhone, you’ll notice that it changes the media volume and the ringer volume at the same time. If you want to reduce the volume of your media but still keep the ringtones loud, you can’t do it easily unless you use a clever workaround. However, thanks to Editor /u/DC5tinewe now have exactly that.

To achieve this, you will need to use Apple’s software Shortcuts application. First, add the /u/DC5tine Adjust Volume shortcut to the app. using this link. Next, open the Shortcuts app and look for “Adjust volume” or scroll down until you see it. Long press the shortcut, tap Shareand select Add to Home Screen. Now press the Adjust the volume on your iPhone’s home screen and it will show you two options: Media And Ringtone. Select the one you want to adjust, use the slider to set the desired volume level and press Do. That’s it!

Credit: Pranay Parab

Right now, the shortcut’s only limitation is that it can’t read your iPhone’s current volume level. This is because iOS doesn’t provide any way for shortcuts to access this information. When you try to change the volume level using the shortcut, you will notice that the slider is still set to 50%. This is just a default value displayed by the slider and does not affect the actual volume of your iPhone.

The Adjust Volume shortcut will work for any type of media, including Instagram Reels, TikTok videos, YouTube videos, or any other video or audio you want to play. As long as you use the shortcut to adjust your media volume, your ringtone volume will remain unchanged. In some cases, you may even want to use the shortcut to set a lower or higher ringer volume without affecting the media volume.

Either way, the shortcut finally allows you to change one setting without impacting the other. Likewise, on Mac, you will also need to use a third-party solution to set a different volume level for each application.