How do I completely turn off voice control?

Voice control refers to the ability to operate your device hands-free using voice commands. Popular voice assistants like Siri, Google Assistant, Alexa, and Cortana allow you to launch apps, search the web, dictate messages, and more using just your voice.

While voice control offers convenient hands-free access on mobile devices, there are some reasons you may want to disable it completely:

Privacy concerns – voice assistants continuously listen and can capture private conversations

Security risks – an exploited voice assistant could give someone access to personal data
Accidental activations – voice assistants can be triggered unintentionally and disrupt your workflow
Distraction – some find the voice feedback distracting or annoying

Limited usefulness – advanced users may prefer manual input methods like typing

If you find voice control to be more of a nuisance than a help, you have the option to turn it off entirely on your iPhone. The steps below will walk you through disabling voice control and all voice assistant features.

Locate Voice Control Settings

On iPhone, the voice control setting is located in the Settings app under Accessibility. Specifically, go to Settings > Accessibility > Voice Control to find the main toggle to turn voice control on or off.

According to Apple Support, you can access the Voice Control settings by following these steps:

Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
Tap on “Accessibility”.

Select “Voice Control”.

This will open the Voice Control settings where you can toggle voice control on or off, set up commands, customize labels, and adjust other voice control preferences.

Turn Off Voice Control

The easiest way to disable Voice Control on your iPhone is to toggle the setting off. To do this:

Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
Tap Accessibility.
Scroll down and tap Voice Control.

Toggle the switch next to Voice Control to the off position.

This will completely disable Voice Control on your device so it will no longer listen for commands or speak responses. The feature will remain off until you decide to toggle it back on.

According to Cellular News, the Voice Control switch is the master control for the entire feature. Flipping it off will stop your iPhone from listening for the “Hey Siri” wake phrase and also disable any voice commands. So this one toggle makes it easy to completely disable voice control.

Disable Siri

Disabling Siri entirely on your iPhone or iPad can help provide an additional layer of protection against unwanted voice controls. To fully turn off Siri:

Go to Settings > Siri & Search.
Toggle off “Listen for Hey Siri”

Toggle off “Press Side Button for Siri”
Toggle off “Allow Siri When Locked”

This will completely disable Siri from being activated, whether your device is locked or unlocked. Siri will no longer listen for “Hey Siri” or allow voice control activation from the side button. According to Apple Support, disabling Siri may improve device performance and battery life as well (source).

With Siri fully disabled, no voice commands will be accepted. You can re-enable Siri at any time by toggling these switches back on if desired.

Turn Off Listen for Hey Siri

The “Listen for Hey Siri” feature allows iPhone users to activate Siri hands-free just by saying “Hey Siri.” This means your iPhone is constantly listening for the wake phrase. To disable this feature entirely:

Open the Settings app and tap Siri & Search. Under the Listen for “Hey Siri” section, toggle the switch off. This will prevent your iPhone from listening for “Hey Siri” activation [1].

With Listen for “Hey Siri” disabled, you’ll have to activate Siri manually by pressing and holding the side or home button. Turning this feature off is important if you want to prevent any accidental Siri activation and increase privacy.

Disable Allow Siri While Locked

One of the primary ways to disable voice control on your iPhone is to turn off the “Allow Siri While Locked” setting. This prevents Siri from being activated when your phone is locked with the screen off.

To disable this setting:

Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
Tap on “Siri & Search”.
Under “Allow Siri”, toggle off the “While Locked” option.

With this disabled, you won’t be able to activate Siri by saying “Hey Siri” or holding down the side/home button when your phone is locked. This is one of the main ways to restrict voice control access on your iPhone according to discussions on Apple’s forums (source).

Some key points on disabling this setting:

Prevents Siri when phone is locked, ensuring no voice commands can be made.

You’ll have to unlock your phone first before being able to use Siri.
Provides more security and privacy for your iPhone.

Turn Off Type to Siri

This will disable the ability to type requests to Siri rather than speaking to her. With Type to Siri enabled, you can access Siri by typing your request. Disabling this feature will remove the microphone icon that appears when you hold down the home button or call out “Hey Siri”, preventing you from typing requests.

To turn off Type to Siri on an iPhone or iPad running iOS 16 or later:
1. Open the Settings app.
2. Tap on Accessibility.
3. Tap on Siri.

4. Toggle off the switch next to Type to Siri. (https://www.idownloadblog.com/2021/12/15/how-to-type-to-siri/)

With Type to Siri disabled, you will only be able to access Siri by speaking your requests out loud. This ensures voice control is fully disabled on your device.

Disable Announce Notifications

Disabling Announce Notifications will prevent Siri from reading your notifications aloud through the iPhone speaker. This option was introduced in iOS 15, and requires an iPhone running iOS 15 or later to work properly.

To disable Announce Notifications:

Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
Tap on Notifications.

Scroll down and turn off the toggle for Announce Notifications.

With Announce Notifications disabled, Siri will no longer read notifications out loud when they arrive on your iPhone. This provides more privacy and avoids interruptions from incoming notifications being announced.

Disabling this feature stops the audio announcements, while leaving other Siri and voice control functionalities intact on your device. You can always re-enable it later if desired from the same Notifications settings screen.

Restart Your Device

It’s important to restart your iPhone after making changes to disable voice control settings. Restarting your device will ensure the changes fully take effect across iOS.

When you change system settings on an iPhone, some of those changes don’t fully propagate through the operating system until you restart the device. This allows any apps or processes still running to fully close out before the new settings are initialized.

Restarting your iPhone essentially performs a soft reset, cycling power to the device and reloading the OS. This clears out any memory leaks or stuck processes from before the settings changes. It ensures iOS loads back up completely with the new voice control configuration.

So after making the recommended changes, be sure to fully power down your iPhone and restart it. Let it reboot completely until you are back at the lock screen. This will verify all unnecessary voice control features are fully disabled across the system.

Test Voice Control

Once you have completed all of the previous steps, the final step is to test if voice control is fully disabled on your device. Try speaking requests like “Hey Siri” or “Hello Siri” and see if your device responds at all. You can also try pressing and holding the home or side button, depending on your iPhone model, to activate Siri. If Siri does not activate and your phone does not respond to any voice commands, then voice control is successfully turned off.

Additionally, go into a text field or app and say “period” or “comma” to see if it types those characters out. If your phone does not type anything when you speak, it is another good sign voice control has been fully disabled.

Be sure to test voice control thoroughly across different apps and use cases. Try speaking requests to ensure voice control is fully disabled in all contexts before considering the process complete. If your iPhone responds to “Hey Siri” or attempts to type text from your voice at any point, then further troubleshooting is needed to turn off voice control entirely.