- By: James Grear
- Last updated:
Removing the alarm from an AirTag being used to track a bicycle prevents thieves from being alerted of its presence if your bike was stolen.
If the thief doesn’t notice your AirTag, you’ll have more time to track and locate your two-wheeled friend before it’s stripped for parts or sold for quick cash via an online marketplace.
If you’re considering silencing your AirTag to track your bike, it’s worth reading my review of the 8 best AirTag mounts to make sure your mount won’t affect your AirTag’s performance.
Outside of using an AirTag to track your bike, you should understand and remember that it’s a criminal offence to track someone or their items without their permission.
If you haven’t got an AirTag, read my AirTags for Bike Tracking article, which looks at the pros and cons of using AirTags to track bikes.
In this guide, I’ll show you the easiest way to silence an AirTag without needing specialist tools. So let’s not waste any time!
If you’re interested in using an AirTag to protect your bike, you can view the most up-to-date price on Amazon here.
5 Simple Steps to Silence Your Airtag for Bike Tracking
Silencing an AirTag is a simple task that will take less than five minutes.
To complete the steps below and silence your tag, all you’ll need is:
- A scalpel (or similar thin & sharp tool)
- A cutting mat/chopping board or another durable surface
- An AirTag
Please bear in mind that whilst your speaker can be re-inserted into your AirTag, opening your AirTag can mark or make a slight dent to its plastic housing.
Silencing an AirTag also damages its waterproof seal, so as you would usually, you’ll want to ensure it has limited contact with water.
By modifying your AirTag, you’ll also void your Apple Warranty, so make sure this is something you want before proceeding.
1. Remove the Battery Compartment and Battery From Your Airtag
Depress and rotate the silver back of the AirTag until it pops out of its place. After removing the outer battery cover, remove the battery from the AirTag.
2. Locate the Internal Locking Tabs
With the AirTag and battery separated, inspect and locate the tabs on the underside of the device, as shown in the image above.
3. Use Your Scalpel to Release the Three Locking Tabs
With the AirTag lying flat on your chopping board/cutting mat, align your scalpel behind one of the locking tabs, as shown above.
Press the scalpel down between the outer white shell and the internal grey housing of the AirTag, levering against the locking tab until it releases.
Repeat this for the two other tabs.
4. Remove the Internal Battery Housing
Once all three tabs have been moved to the open position, you can use your scalpel to assist in removing the internal battery housing.
The grey plastic casing should pop out easily, if not, don’t pull on it, as you may end up snapping a locking tab.
If the internal housing is not easily removable at this stage or still feels stuck, repeat step 3, ensuring all tabs are in the open position.
5. Locate and Remove the Speaker From the Middle of the Airtag
Locate the AirTag speaker. This is a small round silver device with a white sticker on one side and will be in one of two locations.
Both of these locations are equally as easy to remove:
- At the centre of the AirTag
- Stuck to the back of the internal battery housing
If your speaker is stuck to the back of the internal battery housing, gently press your scalpel or use your fingernails to remove it from the plastic housing.
If your speaker is sitting in the centre of the AirTag, place your scalpel behind the speaker and slowly lever it out, as shown above.
The glue used to secure the speaker in place is pretty weak, so if you’re struggling to remove it, double check you’re removing the correct part shown in the images above!
6. Reattach the Internal Battery Housing
Once you’ve removed the speaker from the AirTag, place it to one side.
Next, re-align the internal battery housing, making sure the holes are aligned with the three metal terminals.
Press down on the housing around the edge until it clicks back into place.
This can take a little squeeze, but again if it’s not slotting back in, make sure you’ve got it re-aligned using the image above for guidance.
7. Reinsert the Battery and Remount the Battery Lid
Once the inner housing is back in place and secured, place the battery back into your AirTag and return the outer battery cover, rotating into position.
And that’s it! AirTag silenced. We’ll perform a quick test now to ensure everything works as it should.
8. Test the AirTag
Open the “Find My” app on your iPhone, navigate to “Items”, and select the AirTag you’ve just modified.
First, test the “Play Sound” option. If you hold the AirTag to your ear, you’ll hear a very faint notification sound, but this won’t be noticed by a thief who’s stolen your bike.
The
Finally, it’s good to test the location tracking feature to double-check that this also works.
Wrapping Up - AirTag Silencing Complete
After completing the above steps, your AirTag should now be silenced and ready for use to track your bike!
If the instructions haven’t worked for whatever reason, please feel free to leave me a comment below, and I’ll get back to you.
Alternatively, you may find my AirTag silencing YouTube video easier to follow, so feel free to watch that.
Finally, now that you’ve got yourself a silenced AirTag, you’ll want to get a mount that will keep your AirTag out of sight and hidden from a thief.
I recently tested and reviewed the best AirTag bike mounts, have a read to learn about some of the best covert options available to you.
Otherwise, If you don’t want to buy a mount, try one of my DIY AirTag bike mount ideas.
Finally, thanks for reading, I hope you found this brief guide helpful!
Recent Updates:
- 23rd Jan 2024: Revised article layout to improve user experience across all devices
