How to Find Lost Bose Earbuds or Headphones

Bose’s finder feature, Find My Buds, is documented for the SoundSport Free earbuds in the Bose Connect app. It shows where you last used them and plays a chirp once you’re back in Bluetooth range (Bose). Models such as QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds and Ultra Open Earbuds use the Bose app instead (Bose), and no Bose models appear on Google’s list of Find Hub accessories (Google). For those, start at the last place you used them, check whether your phone still connects, and if they’re switched on, follow their Bluetooth signal. All of that works on an iPhone as well as an Android phone.

SoundSport Free: use Find My Buds

Bose says you have to turn Find My Buds on before you try to locate the earbuds (Bose). To set it up:

1. Download the free Bose Connect app from the Apple App Store or Google Play and pair the earbuds with your phone.
2. Open the app menu and tap Find My Buds.
3. Tap Enable Find My Buds, then Enable Location Services. From then on, the app stores the last known location where you used the earbuds with your phone.

When the earbuds go missing:

1. Open Bose Connect and go to Find My Buds. The map shows where you are and where you last used the earbuds with your phone.
2. Head toward that last known location.
3. Once you’re within Bluetooth range, and if the earbuds still have power, tap the chirp button. Each earbud first plays a voice warning that the locator alarm is about to go off, and then the chirp gets louder and louder. Bose says you can hear it even with the charging case closed.
4. When you find them, stop the chirp in the app or press the Multi-function button on the right earbud (Bose).

Bose wrote these instructions for the SoundSport Free, which it sold from 2017 to 2020 (Bose). Bose Connect also works with other products, including the SoundSport Wireless and QuietComfort 35 headphones (Bose).

QuietComfort, Ultra Open and other newer models

The QuietComfort Earbuds, QuietComfort Earbuds II, QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds, Ultra Open Earbuds, Sport Earbuds and QuietComfort Ultra Headphones are among the products Bose lists for the Bose app, not Bose Connect (Bose). Find My Buds, as Bose documents it, is a Bose Connect feature. Bose’s help page for lost QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds covers replacement options and doesn’t describe a way to track them (Bose). That leaves a manual search:

1. Think back to the last time you heard audio through them, and start there.
2. Open your phone’s Bluetooth settings. If the earbuds or headphones show as connected, they’re switched on and within range. Play something loud through them, or use our Earbud Sound Finder, which plays a loud chirp in just the left or right earbud so you can listen for the missing side.
3. If they don’t show as connected but could still be switched on, follow the signal.

Follow the signal for the last few feet

A phone can measure how strong a Bluetooth signal is when it arrives, a reading called RSSI (received signal strength indication). The Bluetooth SIG, the group behind the Bluetooth standard, says a higher RSSI number means a stronger signal, and that watching it rise or fall tells you whether you’re moving toward the source or away from it (Bluetooth SIG).

Expect the number to wobble. The Bluetooth SIG says the environment has a large effect on RSSI (Bluetooth SIG). Bose says distance, walls, doors and other electronics can weaken the Bluetooth signal, and that the human body can interfere with it too (Bose).

How to use the readings:

• Look for your model’s name in the list. Bose says its products can show up more than once in a phone’s Bluetooth list, including entries labeled LE (Low Energy) (Bose), so check every entry that matches.
• Start where you last had them and move slowly. Stop for a few seconds at each spot, because the number jumps around.
• Hold the phone out in front of you, since your own body can block some of the signal.
• Walk in one direction. If the signal gets stronger, keep going. If it gets weaker, turn back and try another direction.
• Where the signal is strongest, search low and inside things: couch cushions, bags, coat pockets, car seats.

When there’s nothing to pick up

Your phone’s Bluetooth settings and any scanner app rely on a signal the earbuds or headphones are sending, and Bose products go quiet on their own in some situations:

• QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (2nd Gen) power off when you put both earbuds in the charging case and close it, and they disconnect from your phone when they go in the case. An earbud that’s out of the case and out of your ear for 10 minutes switches to Standby (Bose).
• QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen) disconnect about 3 seconds after you lay them flat or put them in their case, or after 10 minutes in any other position. They go into sleep mode after 20 minutes flat or in the case, or after 10 minutes in any other position (Bose).

Earbuds that are shut in their case, switched off, asleep or out of battery may not show up in a scan at all, so an empty result doesn’t prove they’re far away. Search the last place you used them by eye. Our guide to finding earbuds that are switched off covers that kind of search.