How to stop your Android phone from listening to you by disabling 3 microphone-related features
- If you want your Android phone to stop listening to you, you can disable its "OK Google" feature in the phone's Settings app.
- To thoroughly stop your Android from listening, you can also turn off listening while driving and disable the Google search app's microphone.
- Android phones are configured to listen to you in order to respond to wake words like "OK Google" and perform voice commands.
Your phone may be silently listening to everything you say. That's because smartphone voice assistants like "OK Google" need to know when to spring into action.
To activate your Android phone's voice assistant, all you need to say are wake words "OK Google" or "Hey Google." Your phone uses only your audio starting with - or just before - the wake word and ending when you've completed your command.
These interactions are archived to improve the service. You can see all your Google Assistant commands by visiting My Google Activity. Click Filter by Date & Product and then choose Voice & Audio.
While having a voice assistant at the ready has its advantages, this understandably raises privacy concerns for smartphone users. So if you'd rather not have your phone listening to you, you can disable the features that do it. You'll need to disable "Hey Google," audio monitoring while driving, and the Google search microphone.
Once you do, Google will no longer listen for your voice.
How to stop an Android from listening to you by disabling Google Assistant
1. Open the Settings app.
2. Tap Google.
3. In the services section, select Account services.
4. Choose Search, Assistant & Voice.
5. Tap Voice.
6. In the Hey Google section, select Voice Match.
7. Turn off Hey Google by swiping the button to the left.
How to stop an Android from listening to you by disabling audio monitoring
After disabling Hey Google in the Voice Match menu, as depicted in the section above, stay in the same window.
1. Tap Driving Settings.
2. Turn off While driving by swiping the button to the left.
How to stop the Google search app from listening to you on your Android
1. Launch the Settings app.
2. Tap Apps & Notifications or Apps, depending on your device.
3. Select See all apps if required. Otherwise, scroll down and tap Google.
4. Choose Permissions.
5. Tap Microphone.
6. Select Deny to prevent Google from using the mic.
