Learn how to stop your iPhone or iPad from listening for the “Hey Siri” or “Siri” wake phrase to disable hands-free voice activation, either temporarily or permanently.
Apple’s Siri assistant springs into action when the onboard microphones in your iPhone detect you said the “Siri” or “Hey Siri” wake phrase. This is great for hands-free activation, but not everyone is a fan of the feature. Your iPhone may sometimes mishear your words, resulting in false positives. Additionally, pranksters (or actors in TV shows) may utter the magic words in an inopportune moment to summon Siri.
In this step-by-step tutorial, we’ll show you how to turn off hands-free Siri by stopping your iPhone from listening for the “Siri” or “Hey Siri” activation phrase.
Turn off “Siri” or “Hey Siri” temporarily
Although Apple intelligently activates Siri on just one nearby device at a time after you say the magic word, you can temporarily stop your iPhone from responding to “Siri” or “Hey Siri” without changing any settings. To do so, simply place your iPhone face down, and it will stop listening for the “Siri” or “Hey Siri” activation phrase.
No matter how many times you say the magic word, Siri won’t activate. This underrated capability, called Facedown Detection, uses built-in ambient light and proximity sensors to detect when your iPhone is laid with its face down.
As soon as you pick up the phone, hands-free Siri is re-activated. In case Siri continues responding to the magic word even when the phone is lying face down, navigate to Settings > Accessibility > Siri and turn off Always Listen for “Siri.”
Switch off “Hey Siri” permanently
You can turn off “Siri” or “Hey Siri” permanently in the Siri settings.
- Open the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
- Tap Apple Intelligence & Siri or just Siri.
- Select Talk & Type to Siri or Talk to Siri and then select “Off” on the next screen.
Keep “Press Side Button for Siri” and “Type to Siri” turned on to retain the ability to activate Siri by holding the power button or double-tapping the bottom edge of the screen to type to Siri. If you turn those options off, you will turn off Siri altogether.
If your device has an older iOS version, go to Settings > Siri & Search and turn off the toggle next to Listen for “Hey Siri” instead.
Other Siri tips
Did you know that you can also invoke Siri with a custom phrase instead of the standard “Hey Siri” and “Siri” magic words? For those who don’t like Siri, we have instructions to turn off Siri on the AirPods and Apple Watch. And if you do use Apple’s smart assistant regularly, you may be interested to learn about all the ways you can invoke Siri on your Apple devices.