What is airplane mode? How to toggle wireless transmissions on your device to troubleshoot or save data

• Airplane mode disables the radios and transmitters on portable electronics like phones and laptops.
• You can toggle individual radios like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on and off even if airplane mode is on.
• Airplane mode is handy outside of airplane flights for troubleshooting and limiting cellular data usage.

Airplane mode is a setting found on most portable electronics — like phones, tablets, and laptops — that disables wireless transmitters like the cellular radio and Wi-Fi on the device.

Depending on the manufacturer, airplane mode might also disable Bluetooth and GPS. The primary intention behind the feature is to eliminate potential radio interference with critical systems on commercial airplanes.

How to enable airplane mode

You can find a quick-access toggle for airplane mode within easy reach on almost any portable device. On iPhones and Android devices, you can swipe down from the top of the screen to find the airplane-shaped button.

On a laptop running Windows, click the Wi-Fi signal indicator to see and toggle on the airplane mode button.

What happens when you enable airplane mode

Airplane mode disables the cellular radio so you can't send or receive voice calls or text messages over cellular. Airplane mode also turns off Wi-Fi.

Depending on your device, airplane mode might also disable Bluetooth and GPS. Often, manufacturers don't disable Bluetooth because the network is so short-ranged, and you're allowed to use Bluetooth devices like headphones and keyboards on commercial flights. And there's no practical reason why some manufacturers turn off GPS, since GPS does not transmit at all; it simply receives and processes signals from satellites.

While airplane mode turns all those individual radios off, you can selectively turn specific wireless features back on even while airplane mode is enabled. For example, if you are on a commercial flight that has Wi-Fi, you can turn Wi-Fi back on. This doesn't affect the cellular radio, which is still turned off.

Why you might use airplane mode

Per its name, airplane mode is mainly intended to reduce interference on commercial flights. But there are a handful of other reasons why you might sometimes use this feature:

Troubleshooting

If you're having trouble with your cellular connection or Wi-Fi, a common and easy fix is to toggle the problematic radio off and back on again — it's akin to (but less time-consuming than) rebooting the entire phone. To do that, just turn on airplane mode for a few seconds, then turn it back off again.

Saving data

If you are on a metered cellular plan and need to conserve your data, one way to ensure you don't incur an overage fee is to turn on airplane mode, which prevents you from sending any text messages, downloading data over cellular, or making calls unless you deliberately turn airplane mode off. For more information, read our article on how to turn off cellular data on an iPhone.

Privacy and isolation

Some people find that enabling airplane mode allows them to work uninterrupted by random messages and calls. If you need some time to focus on a project, consider enabling airplane mode to eliminate distractions.

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